The Necromancer's Notebook
by D.A Haven
Summary: Voldemort attacks not when Harry is a year old, but on the very day he and his twin sister are born. Lily survives to raise her only daughter, The-Girl-Who-Lived, but what ever happened to Harry, and why does no one even know he exists?
1. New Beginnings

**_Summary:_**

 _With the prophecy reaching Voldemort earlier than in canon, the attack on the Potter's comes not when Harry is a year old, but on the very day of his birth. Lily survives, raising her only daughter, but what happened to Harry, and why doe_ s _no one remember he_ _exists?_

 _A/N:_

 ** _This story really needs a longer description than I can fit in that little box..._**

 _This story isn't going to be your normal "Wrong Boy/Girl Who Lived" story, in that our main character isn't actually the real Boy/Girl Who Lived._

 _Don't get me wrong, my version of Harry will still be super important to the story, just not the only powerful player on the board._

 _This story also won't be bashing any characters. I find the whole Dumbles/Weasels bashing thing way overdone. Like come on people, Ron was one of Harry's best friends, why do you need to keep making him an evil, backstabbing git? I'll be doing my best to make sure every character has their ups and downs, and won't be just mindlessly bashing certain characters._

 _This story also features a particularly dark, slytherin kind of Harry, and while he will be very, very powerful especially later on, there won't be any godmoding and I also won't just keep tacking on more and more abilities to our hero. He'll have a few that are admittedly a bit overpowered, but then again he's the protagonist soooo..._

 _Lastly, the pairing! No slash and no multi pairings, sorry if those are your thing but I'm just not that kind of writer. Other than that, it's undecided. If you like the story feel free to leave suggestions on a pairing, but understand that my characters will be a bit different from canon, so give it some time so you know what you're getting into._

 _Now that the longest Authors Note ever is done, on with the story._

 ** _WARNING. THIS STORY CONTAINS MATURE CONTENT INCLUDING GRAPHIC, DETAILED VIOLENCE, POSSIBLE TORTURE AND MENTIONS OF HEINOUS CRIMES THAT MAY UPSET SOME READERS. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED._**

* * *

Chapter 1

 ** _New beginnings_**

The wards of St. Mungo's crumpled almost instantly. What little protection they could have offered shattered like glass under the hammering force of the Dark Lord.

Tom Riddle smiled, something cold in the gleam of his eyes and twist of his lips. His Death Eaters swarmed the hospital, black cloaks billowing in the tumultuous night air. There was nothing those inside could do now, but resign themselves to death. Tom drank in the sight, taking a few precious moments to revel in his impending victory.

 _The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches... born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies... and the Dark Lord will mark her as his equal, but she will have power the Dark Lord knows not... and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives... the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies..._

The words of the prophecy rang through his mind just as they had since he first heard them. But now, his mind practically sang them. _With the power to vanquish the Dark Lord?_ The very thought amused him.

 _Lord Voldemort_ would not give his enemies the chance to raise a weapon against him. He would crush it underfoot now, like the insect it was.

Flashes of lights, deep purples, reds and a nauseating green lit the windows, vibrant against the darker outdoors. The anti-apparation and portkey wards Voldemort had set around the grounds kept them pinned in, just fish in a barrel for his Death Eaters to play with now. One of his spies inside the ministry had cut the floo connection as well, and Voldemort smirked at the thought of medi-witches desperately huddled in front of a cold fireplace.

 _Born as the seventh month dies..._ and here they were, on the very last day of July, just moments before midnight. Another spy, a medi-wizard of St. Mungo's, had been waiting undercover for just this moment. He had monitored every childbirth throughout the month, waiting for the girl foretold in the prophecy. There had been few births, far fewer than even Voldemort had expected, and none had been girls.

Until tonight. As Fate would have it, _as the seventh month dies_ had been far more literal than any had realised.

Lily Potter and her husband, the loathed James Potter, had entered St. Mungo's earlier, having not been seen or hears from in seven months, with Lily already going into labour.

Voldemort could not have asked for a better opportunity.

He began his stroll casually. His hood was down, proud and cold eyes scanning the scenes of carnage as he approached a rather large hole that had been blasted into the wall. Stepping through into the hospital, he finally allowed his magic to flare outwards. The few Death Eaters who remained in the room staggered under the force, turning hastily to bow as low as they could before their Lord. Voldemort never even glanced at them. He let his magic seep through the building, like fingers of smoke, feeling every room and every crevice in the building.

 _There._

A small room. Six of his minions were there, and four others, two of whom's magic signatures he knew all too well. James and Lily, and two new little lights.

 _Twins?_ He twirled the thought through his mind. He had not considered the possibility, but surely the prophecy would only apply to one. It _did_ state his supposes vanquisher as female, and one of the signatures was clearly masculine.

Voldemort could have apparated, if he wished. The wards would have allowed him. But still he strolled casually, through room after room, revelling in the end of his enemies last hope.

When he finally reached the room with the Potters, most of the spellfire, and the screaming, had stopped within the hospital.

The door opened slowly, without Voldemort so much as raising a finger. There, inside the room, were his... _enemies._ James, Lily and two bundles of crying _flesh._

James glared up at him, eyes not widening in horror or fear, but pure, unfiltered hatred. He opened his mouth to speak, but seemed to choke on his words.

 _Silencing charm. Most likely Lucius' work._

Both Potters were kneeling on the ground, the woman barely seeming to be alive. Her head leaned against her husband, and her breaths were shallow. The couple's wands lay shattered on the ground in front of them and the six masked Death Eaters had wands fixed unwavering on the already incapacitated family.

Silence descended on the room, unnatural and unnerving.

"We meet again, Potter" Voldemort's tone was both amused and polite, while still holding a venomous edge.

"I believe I like you much more under these circumstances".

The Dark Lord's joy poured out in every word, still holding the Potter patriarch's glare.

Three times, the man had escaped Voldemort before. Each by the skin of his teeth, but thrice nonetheless. The loathing Voldemort had for the man was surpassed only by his hatred for Dumbledore, and possibly the mad old Auror who had dealt him so many losses in the war.

Suddenly, an idea almost too perfect came to Voldemort's mind. It wouldn't be enough for James to simply die.

 _No, James would pay much more than that._

The cold grin on Voldemort's lips grew into something far beyond terrifying.

"Take the woman" His high, aristocratic voice demanded.

His Death Eaters were quick to respond, and far from gentle. A summoning spell on Lily pulled her into the middle of the six, and a muffled cry of pain escaped her.

The look in James' eyes was everything Voldemort had hoped it would be.

"Now, Lord Potter" he began, "I have a proposition for you."

James only glared in response, as Voldemort continued his monologue.

"While you may have betrayed your kind, abandoned our heritage and sided with _creatures_ no greater than the mud in their veins, _your_ blood still remains pure.

He paused for a moment, a brief look of disgust crossing his face, as if the very idea of _Potter_ being a pureblood horrified him.

"But perhaps... _perhaps_ this son of yours could turn your House into one more _deserving_ of your status."

The rage in James' eyes only intensified, as Voldemort summoned the baby boy to his feet. As he was dragged along the rough floor, the wooden planks, splintered from blasts of spellfire, tore a gash into the baby's right cheek. He instantly began screaming, flailing slightly but unable to move.

Voldemort shot a stunner into him.

"And then there is this... _whore_ of yours. To actually marry such a thing, and worse, to let her birth your children? You disgrace the name of all wizards, Potter."

The Death Eaters had closes in around Lily, who still remained unresponsive.

"Although, I suppose even a whore has her uses."

As one of the Death Eaters moved to grab Lily's shoulder, a slight tut from his Lord stopped him cold.

"Unless..." The Dark Lord trailed off, pretending to ponder that which he had already decided.

"Unless of course you _truly_ do love this creature." He snarled. "If so, then by all means, take her back... but if so, I'll be taking your daughter as well."

Of course, Voldemort would not let the baby girl live to see her first sunrise. But the tortured, hateful look in James' eyes as he realised what his choices were was well worth the acting.

 _Pick. Your wife, raped in front of your eyes and then killed, or the life of your newborn child._

Just as Voldemort was about to remove the silencing charm on James, all of hell broke loose.

The wards Voldemort had set up around the building snapped, and _dozens_ of apparation cracks could be heard throughout the building. Sudden shouts and flashes of spellfire, followed by screams and the sounds of full scale battle.

 _Aurors._

But _how?!_

Voldemort's mind raced. There had been no way for the people in the hospital to escape, no way for them to even send a message, and his spies in the ministry should have kept them all busy tonight...

Suddenly it clicked.

 _Snape, the traitorous bastard._

Voldemort screamed in fury. The greasy haired man had _betrayed him._ Warned the Aurors, almost certainly in a desperate attempt to save the _mudblood whore of James Potter!_

In his fury, Voldemort spun on his heel and destroyed the entire wall separating him from the rest of St. Mungo's. As he stepped forwards, ready to slaughter Aurors like the ministry _dogs_ they were, his foot caught on the cloth the baby boy was wrapped in.

With barely a glance downwards, he _banished_ the boy, sending the still unconscious baby sliding out of the room and into an empty corridor of the building.

From behind him, Voldemort heard the meaty _crack_ of a fist colliding with a skull. He spun on his heel, eyes tinged with iridescent red, to find James wrestling a wand away from one of the Death Eaters. It spoke wonders to the man's abilities as an Auror as he managed to disarm one, stun two others and kill a fourth with a well placed cutting hex before any of the _useless_ Death Eaters had even noticed.

Voldemort's wand flashed green, and James Potter dropped dead. He had never seen the spell coming.

Striding quickly now back into the room and all but frothing from the mouth in rage, Voldemort decided _enough was enough._

It was time to end this war, once and for all.

The girl stared up at him, strangely not crying. She watched him approach with innocent eyes, despite her father dying mere feet from her seconds before.

 _How amusing. To be unaware of Death, even as you go to meet him._

Any feeling of amusement was immediately pushed away, as Voldemort's wand rose to point at the girl's forehead.

" _For neither can live while the other survives"_ Voldemort quoted, cold indifference blatant in his eyes.

" _Avada Kedavra."_

The jet of green light struck the girl on the head, but instead of falling over dead, the girl shook, as two forces collided within her.

Her eyes shot open wide, both nearly the same colour as the curse which had struck her, and her mouth parted in a silent scream.

Then, from somewhere inside her, the colliding forces of magic reached their peak, and an explosion rocked the entire foundation of the building.

When the rubble finally cleared, there was no Voldemort. None of the six Death Eaters, or their bodies. Only a baby girl with brilliant green eyes and a scar on her forehead, the unconscious form of her mother, and the corpse of her father lying next to her.

The Death Eaters that remained fled St. Mungo's, terrified without their leader. Some surrendered, claiming Imperius. Others fought to the death.

But on that day, just as the clock struck midnight, the war was won. Voldemort defeated, his Death Eaters scattered and all at the hands of The-Girl-Who-Lived.

In all of the confusion, the fighting and then later the celebration, no one noticed a black cloaked figure, carrying a second Potter child away from the wreckage.

* * *

So! There it is, the first chapter of my first fanfic. A bit longer than I had anticipated, but I wanted a detailed beginning to base the rest of the story off of.

In summary, just in case I didn't make everything clear enough:

-Lily has issues with her childbirth, and is completely blacked out the whole time, never even laying eyes on her children

-Voldemort _intended_ to raise Harry to become a "proper Lord Potter", to prevent a pureblood line from dying out, but grew frustrated and banished him away instead

-James, The Six Death Eater's (Which includes Lucius Malfoy and five unnamed Death Eaters), Voldemort and anyone else who ever saw Harry, died, so NO ONE is aware of Harry's existence right now except the mysterious stranger who took him away

-The Girl Who Lived survived the killing curse, but how she did so is a mystery

-Severus Snape betrayed Voldemort by alerting the Aurors to the attack

-No mention of Sirius or Peter, I wonder why?

... I think that's everything? Maybe? All well.

Hope you enjoyed, any review or suggestions you may have, I'm open to hearing. I have a very good idea where the story is going from here, but that doesn't mean I'm not open to change.

Also, expect this story to progress a bit slow at first. I'll try to keep it exciting though, don't worry.


	2. An Aftermath, A Prelude

Chapter 2

The attack on St. Mungo's had rocked magical Britain to its core. The end of the Dark Lord, his followers dispersed, dead or detained and the birth of a saviour, who's name was already known by every witch and wizard in Britain.

Yet, the victory had come in the wake of the worst slaughter committed during the war. There were a total of seven survivors from the St. Mungo's staff, and only three patients, Lily, The-Girl-Who-Lived and an elderly man who had been trapped under rubble early on in the attack.

It should have been a day of great celebration, but instead the country mourned. Nearly every family had lost someone in the attack, or were still waiting for the _full_ list of casualties to be released.

A list that now sat on the desk of Sirius Black, next to hundreds of other reports and a half empty bottle of firewhiskey.

"You're sure this is everyone?" He was amazed at how level his voice sounded.

The whiskey really had taken away the shaking.

The young Auror in front of him nodded, the bags under his eyes pronounced against the pale shade of his skin.

"Then go, get some rest. It's been a long night."

The Auror looked all too relieved, and wearily muttered his response before leaving the office.

Sirius waited until long after the echoing footsteps had faded before finally looking at the list. He thought he had braced himself, thought he was ready, but at the first sight of it he took in a shuddering breath. Bloody hell is was _long._ Alphabetical, sorted by last name, and continuing on and on in foot after foot of scroll. His hands were still as he shifted the rough parchment ever along, but his heart beat louder and louder as he reached the middle of the list. Then finally...

 _Potter, James._

It was with shaking hands that Sirius finished his glass and with a choked voice that he began to cry, alone in his office.

The muggle motel was far beyond _run down._ The front desk had cobwebs in the corners, the wallpaper was peeling until there were barely scraps left and the single working lightbulb flickered heavily. There was a single, beat up car in the parking lot, and a long stretch of highway on either side, with nothing but fields, hills and trees to be seen in any direction. The old man behind the desk had milky white eyes, but still seemed able to see, if only just barely.

The man in the black cloak doubted the host would remember ever having guests, but he still cast a quick confundus charm anyways. The old host would never remember the strangely dressed man, or the limp bundle he had carried, once morning came. He would, of course, forget that they hadn't paid as well.

If the black cloaked man had expected the rooms to be any better kept, he would have been disappointed. The bed was moldy and the room smelled of rot and mildew. A cold draft crept in from a broken window, which had hastily been patched with tape and a few pieces of cardboard.

A quick spell cleaned the room, another changed the bedding and a third patched the window. It was still a mess, but at least now it wasn't a health hazard to stay in.

The man lowered his hood for the first time since last night, at St. Mungo's. An entire day on the run, evading rogue Death Eaters and the pursuit of Aurors. His weary legs and magic core were screaming for rest, the running and constant apparition taking their toll.

Heavy bags underlined midnight black eyes, as they stared down at the bundle in his arms. A lone arm poked out of the swaddling cloth, noticeably thinner than a baby's would normally be. The skin was nearly as pale as the man's.

The man gently and slowly lowered the top of the cloth, revealing a shocking mess of black hair not too different from the man's own. The man raises the cloth again, a sick feeling rising from his stomach and into his chest. He laid the male Potter child down on one side of the bed, before climbing onto the other side.

As tired as he was, the man could not sleep. The sick feeling would not _leave._ His thoughts churned and writhed viciously, until he squeezed his eyes shut and clamped his hands over his ears, curling into a little ball. He would have resembled a child, except when he opened his eyes something demented, twisted and _horrified_ glimmered from within.

He swallowed the sick feeling, and fought it down as best he could. Rising from the bed far too quickly, he took one long, shuddering breath. He turned back to the bundle, picking it up and holding it tenderly.

He knew what he had to do.

Even if it went against _everything_ he stood for.

A/N: Sorry this chapter took so long and isn't as long as it should be. I needed some time to plan out where the story was going, and I had some stuff keeping me too busy to really write. On the bright side, I have most of the story figured out now (I think, probably not but whatever) and I'll have more time to write soon. Expect another upload, and a much LONGER upload sometime within the next week. (Seriously, there won't be any more chapters this short, ever.)

Still haven't decided the main pairing yet, although a couple of other characters have their pairings planned out.

Any criticism or comments are appreciated, as they should always be

Thanks for reading!

-D.


	3. Eight Years Later

Dahlia Potter had always been told she was special. Since as long as she could remember, life had always been about her. Her mum fretted over her, always worried for her safety even when there wasn't anything wrong. If Mum ever so much as caught her on a chair, just getting a plate from the cupboard, Dahlia would be grabbed and sat down, and scolded for putting herself at risk. The outdoors was off limits. She had access to a small patch of grass in the backyard, but only when Mum was there to watch over her. Most days, Dahlia stayed inside. Mum always said that only the house was safe. Some kind of charm, a fiddlers charm or something (Dahlia could never remember) kept it safe from the bad people who wanted to hurt them. The bad people that took Daddy away, not that Dahlia knew who Daddy was supposed to be.

Other kids lived nearby. Dahlia could see them sometimes, since her bedroom had a little, round window by her bed. They played ball games in the street and rode bikes around the small town. Dahlia had tried going to play with them, once. She had put on her favourite dress and sandals and strode off to go make friends.

Mum had caught her before she made it out the door.

Dahlia had wanted to go outside so bad that one day, while she stared out her window, the window simply disappeared. Suddenly there was a hole in her wall, and a ramp of something nearly invisible leading down to the road. She had run outside, startling the group of boys there, as she seemed to appear out of nowhere. Before Dahlia could say anything, they screamed and rode away, the words _run_ and _ghost_ being carried back by the wind.

Mum had screamed too, and dragged her back inside.

That had been the first sign of Dahlia's magic, and when she was only five years old too. The next day a funny old man with a white beard Dahlia discovered she loved to tug on had come to visit. His eyes twinkled as he told Dahlia she was a very special witch, even more special than most witches. She was powerful, he and her mum had said. She would do great things when she was older.

Dahlia just wanted to do fun things. She didn't care about _great._ The inside of the house was boring and her mum was so very, very sad. She never told Dahlia so, but Dahlia knew. She could see it in Mum's eyes when she stared at the two empty seats at the kitchen table.

After she had made the window disappear, the old wizard told Mum that Dahlia would need training. Special training, for the special witch. Even before she went to school, to learn magic with the other witches and wizards.

Because of the bad people. They always came up, somehow. She was sick of it.

The training had been going for two years now. From when she was six until today, the start of summer, just months away from her ninth birthday. She had a day off today, no potion brewing (which she was rubbish at) or studying magic theory. No casting minor spells with Mum's wand, either.

So Dahlia found herself back in her room, seated in the little chair next to the window. It was a tiny little cubby, barely four feet wide with only a tiny desk and chair in it, crooked so the chair could be closer to the window. Her messy, wavy black hair hung loose nearly to her waist, having never been truly cut in her life. Mum had wanted to cut it a few times, but each time she never did more than trim the ends, and whispering something about how similar it was to Daddy's hair. She was told her hazel eyes were from Daddy too.

She slowly twirled a lock of hair between her fingers, not noticing or caring how it made it even more curly and wild. Her eyes were locked outside, watching the same group of boys she had scared two years ago ride in circles around the street. The oldest ones were a few years older than Dahlia, but the youngest looked the same age, an impish boy with a big smile and red hair.

"Dahlia, could you come help me for a moment please?" Her mum's voice cried from downstairs.

Prying her eyes away from the window, Dahlia trudged slowly towards and then down the creaky, narrow and all-too steep wooden stairs. They ended at the bottom in the kitchen, where her mother stood somewhat flustered in front of several bubbling and steaming pots and pans. Her auburn hair was tied up in a ponytail, and a look of intense concentration was stuck on her face.

Dahlia froze, completely surprised. Why would her mother ever need to cook so much food? And all at once too?

"Could you take a few of these off my hands? It's a... little bit more than I can handle."

It was clear from her strained voice that it was clearly _much_ more than she could handle, but Dahlia didn't mention that. She just walked to the stove, stepping around a wood fire burning directly on the floor with yet another pot on it, and began stirring. It quickly became clear that everything being made was something she knew, so her and her mother settled into a silent but determined duo.

Suddenly an idea crossed her mind. Spatulas and spoons floated all around, controlled by her mother and acting as a dozen extra hands in the kitchen. A quick glance at Lily, and the sweat that beaded her forehead told Dahlia all she needed to know. If she could just find a way to take some of the load off...

Closing her eyes and focusing, she tried to sense the magic her mother now controlled. Tried to feel it in the air, the way the bearded man said he could. At first there was nothing, but then... slowly at first and then in a great rush, she felt it. Just in two of the spoons, but still! She could feel it!

It was almost like reaching out with an extra hand and grabbing the spoons. Suddenly she could feel the wood grains and the weight, the resistance as they stirred the thick soups of their respective pots.

They always told her it was super hard to do, that most people never could. She found that hard to believe though. It had only taken a few seconds! Potions were much harder than this.

When she wrenched control away from her mother, Lily's eyes shot open wide and she turned her head so quick Dahlia was amazed her neck wasn't hurt. Lily stared at the spoons first, and then at her daughter, back and forth, not realising the rest of her utensils had stopped moving. Dahlia blushed, shrinking slightly under the intense gaze of her mother, but continued cooking.

"Dahlia?" Her mother asked.

She didn't respond, but let the spoons drop, embarrassed and sure that she had done something wrong.

She kept cooking with her own two hands, refusing to make eye contact. Why oh why did she have to tamper with her mother's spell?

"Could you do that again, Dahl?" Her mother didn't sound angry, and wait, did she just ask for Dahlia to do it again?

Somewhat confused and still convinced she had done something wrong, Dahlia again reached out, attempting to grab the spoons. But her concentration was gone and the best she could do was make them rattle the slightest bit.

Her mother gaped for a moment, before hugging Dahlia tightly and kissing her forehead. Then it was back to work, adding pinches of spices and stirring and adjusting heats...

They worked for several hours after that. Neither talked much, as neither were very talkative people, and the only words spoken were related to the cooking itself. They wore identical expressions of concentration, although neither noticed such a thing.

When the last dish was finally done was when Dahlia asked the question that had been burning the entire time.

"Why did we make so much food, Mum?"

Lily sighed, exhaustion written on her face.

"We have guests for dinner, Dahl. More than we've ever had before... It won't just be Sirius or Dumbledore this time, although they both should be here."

At once Dahlia's mind was racing. How many people?! And who?! Why were they coming and when would they be here? Where were they coming from and...

So many questions ran through her mind that she simply stood there, not asking even one of them. Lily must have seen them in her eyes however, because she smiled and started answering.

"There's been a few changes in the Or... a group that me and your father once belonged to. Some new protocols, looser security now that it's been so long without an attack from... the bad people. There's been others like us, in hiding... but we don't have to be quite as strict anymore. It's safer now. There will be supper here tonight, for a decent sized group of people we can trust. We'll be going over the new protocols and celebrati..."

Dahlia stopped listening at that.

People! Coming here! Tonight!

She took off, sprinting up the stairs to her attic bedroom. She flung open the large oak wardrobe in the back of her room and began throwing clothes of all kinds out onto the flow, viciously tearing her way through to find something special to wear. She didn't own a huge amount of clothes, at least she didn't consider it a lot (her mother disagreed) and there was only one dress she wanted for tonight.

Several minutes later she bolted down the stairs, hair flying wildly around her, wearing her favourite yellow floral dress and the largest grin her mother had ever seen. Dahlia flung herself into her mother's arms, and with a slight oof her mother caught her and twirled her around a few times. Dahlia's smile was infectious, and soon her silly antics had Lily smiling as well, all the more excited for the guests.

They arrived shortly after, just an hour before the sun was to set. Dahlia squeeked and ran into the kitchen to hide behind her mother as first the old bearded wizard came out of the fireplace.

"Headmaster!" Lily called out warmly, smiling at the ridiculous star covered purple robes the man wore.

"Lily, my dear, I do believe I've told you many times it's 'Albus', to you. I haven't been your headmaster in quite some time" Even as he spoke, Dumbledore's eyes held a grandfatherly twinkle.

The two embraced, as the second figure came through the fireplace. Seeming absolutely menacing at first, the dark, imposing figure soon gave way to Sirius Black, full marauder grin in place.

"Uncle Siri!" This time it was Dahlia who ran forwards to embrace the visitor.

"There's my little flower" He beamed, picking up Dahlia and holding her high overhead, twirling slowly around before lowering her to give her a quick kiss on the head. Dahlia beamed right back, a gap missing in her teeth but otherwise the resemblance to her father was uncanny. After all these years, though, the pain of seeing a little, female James running around had faded, and now Sirius felt only joy at the sight of his goddaughter.

The next person to come through was a little less familiar, but still someone she had met several times before. Professer McGonagall's stern face only lasted a second before a suppressed look of adoration and amusement took over. Dahlia had run up to her as well, and just like always had reached up with both arms and bounced up and down on her tippy toes, straining to reach the pointy witch's hat on McGonagall's head.

With a quick sigh, still attempting to look stern, McGonagall took the hat from her head and handed it to Dahlia, who promptly slapped it onto her own head (it was far too big and went down until it rested on her nose) and took off running, swishing a pretend wand and making her own sound effects.

Lily watched and giggled as the strict transfiguration teacher lost the battle to keep a smile off of her face.

Hagrid came through next, barely fitting inside the room and seeming to bend physics as he came out of a fireplace much smaller than himself. Dahlia greeted him in much the same way, being picked up and sat to rest on top of the half-giant's shoulder. The tip of McGonagall's hat was just inches from the roof. Hagrid was the only one who could match the size of Dahlia's smile, and even then only because his mouth was so massive. When he laughed, him and Dahlia both shook like mad, which made Dahlia giggle herself, which only made Hagrid laugh even next two that came through, Dahlia had never seen before and the same with a number of others after that. She was introduced, still sitting on Hagrid's shoulder and wearing the witch's hat, to each one. They all stared slightly, mostly at her forehead, which although was covered by the hat, bore the lightning bolt scar they all knew was there.

Kingsley, Amelia Bones, the Tonks's which included a teenaged girl with pink hair who was quite rude and several others, like one man named Dungus or something who smelled funny and had a nasty smile.

Then came an elderly woman, and a much smaller person next to her. She somehow looked even more strict than McGonagall, and kept a tight grip on the young boy beside her.

Dahlia couldn't help but stare.

Someone her age. Inside her house! She slid down from Hagrid's shoulder, and walked over to meet them, or rather, him. Before she could say hello, or anything, really, the strict looking woman steppes forwards.

"Dahlia Potter, I presume. I am Augusta Longbottom. A pleasure" and she give a stiff bow, which Dahlia vaguely remember from etiquette lessons with Mum was a formal greeting of sorts.

Barely remembering to courtsy back, Dahlia stumbled slightly over the unfamiliar motion. Of course with both hands on the sides of her dress, she couldn't hold the hat up and it dropped down over her eyes completely. She squeaked in surprise and blushed a furious shade of red as she pushed the hat back up, but leaving it slightly lower, trying to cover at least some of her face.

Peaking out from under the hat with just one hazel eye, she saw that the boy was almost the same shade of red. He was ever so slightly overweight, with rounded cheeks and fair skin. He vaguely resembled a tomato, thought Dahlia, but she kept the thought to herself.

"Wonderful, we've finally met someone as shy as my grandson" Augusta quipped.

She quickly cuffed the boy on the back of the head, and he seemed to come out of his stupor. Taking a hesitant half-step forwards, he held out one hand rather stiffly, somewhere halfway between reaching for a handshake and reaching for her hand to kiss it, in the more traditional greeting.

Dahlia, not stiffly but softly and shyly offered her hand in much the same way, not noticing that neither had said a word of introduction.

For a second the boy went to grab her hand to kiss it, right as Dahlia shifted for a handshake. This left their hands in a very awkward position, and their faces an even deeper shade of red.

What's wrong with me? I've wanted to meet people my own age for years, and now I can't even greet one properly! Dahlia thought, not realising that almost identical thoughts were in the boy's head at the same moment.

Augusta cleared her throat, and the boy again snapped out of it and began shaking Dahlia's hand up and down.

"N-Neville" was all he said.

"Dahlia" she replied.

While his voice had been loud and clear, but choked and with a slight stutter, hers had been almost mouse-like, so soft only Neville and Augusta could hear her. She pulled her hand away and tugged the hat slightly lower over her eyes.

Dahlia was very, very thankful McGonagall didn't ask for her hat back right then.

Instead, Dahlia was allowed to wear it all through supper. She sat next to Lily at the magically expanded table, with Sirius on her other side. While she never lost the slight blush from her embarrassment earlier, her smile slowly came back at the jokes and teasing of her Godfather, and soon she was enjoying her meal.

She learned a lot about her new guests from listening to them over supper. Old tales from times at Hogwarts, to celebrations and parties in the years after. Not once did they mention the bad people, or the war. It was refreshing.

When dinner ended, however, things got even better.

Dumbledore stood up, and immediately the room was silent. The twinkle in his eyes shone brighter than Dahlia had ever seen and his smile was clear for everyone to see.

"Now, while these stories, particularly yours, Mr. Black, are exceptionally entertaining, I'm afraid it's time for some business.

Luckily, our topic for the day is the most wonderful I've had to share and discuss in nearly a decade. Last week, Head Auror Black made a rather peculiar and significant arrest. Several, as a matter of fact."

At this, some murmurs rose, along with the barely restrained grin of Black himself.

"Since the fall of you-know-who nearly nine years ago, Death Eater activity has been slowly dwindling. At first it was as if the war had not ended, but slowly, battles were won and our enemies numbers dwindled. In the past two years, the number of attacks has dropped to nearly negligible levels. Until last week, when a raid lead and organized by Mr. Black here found a group of Death Eaters hiding in Muggle London."

Surprised looks all around the table, although no one spoke a word to interrupt.

"Which brings us to tonight's business. Under veritaserum interrogation, these six Death Eaters admitted to being responsible for every attack committed within the last year, and also to being the only Death Eaters they knew of to still be active."

This time, Dumbledore had to wait for several moments for the talking to settle.

"While this isn't a guarantee that things are now perfectly safe, it is enough for us to have decided that security measures may be lowered, so as to increase the freedoms of some of you."

Dahlia's eyes were far, far too wide. Dumbledore made brief eye contact, enough for her to see the true happiness he felt in saying those words.

Lily had said that they would be given more freedom's now, but to hear it spoken like this, with authority was something completely different.

Dahlia didn't cry very often, but underneath the brim of McGonagall's hat, she began brushing away tears. As if knowing how she felt, her godfather suddenly rested his arm over her shoulders and pulled her into his side. He kept her like that until he noticed she was using his robes to dry her eyes and nose, when he jokingly jerked away. It worked however and Dahlia, still with tears in her eyes, laughed in a choking sort of way.

The rest of the night passed in a blur. Dahlia could go outside now. The Fidelius charm would still be on the house so she had to be careful but she could go outside! And the people here for dinner could come visit, or-or she could go and visit them! At their house! And Diagon Alley, too! Of course her mum would have to be there too but still! And-and...

The list seemed to go on and onto Dahlia, even if it really wasn't that long. It was so much more than she had ever had before that it overwhelmed her completely.

By the time the sun was about to set, many of the grown-ups had started drinking. They celebrated in their own way, and even the teenaged Tonks girl joined them.

It left Dahlia and Neville alone, and they soon found themselves standing away from the table, neither sure how to start a conversation but both wanting to quite badly.

"H-have you ever played with another kid before?" Neville suddenly blurted out, after several moments of silence.

Dahlia looked at him oddly, no longer hiding completely under the hat but still holding it low on her forehead.

"No" was all she said.

Where had her voice gone? She was always pretty talkative with Mum, and Uncle Siri and even McGonagall and Dumbledore, so why now did she barely whisper? It was so embarrassing!

"Oh, well... well I've never either" He finally replied. "I didn't get to play much at all really, Gran doesn't like many games, a-and there are no other kids around, just sometimes my uncle but I don't like him much."

"Oh, okay".

She fought the urge to pull the hat down lower, knowing full well she was a deep, dark shade of red right to her toes.

Neville, to his credit, didn't give up. It was most likely the first sign of any courage he had ever shown in his life, but he kept talking to her, all through the evening. Neither of them knew any good games, so when he managed to convince her to play, they tried to make up their own. It wasn't very successful, but neither seemed to mind at all. Eventually the adults took notice, and with cheerful eyes watched the shy, timid boy trying his very best to be brave and make up games to play, and the even more shy and timid girl in a floppy, oversized hat following him.

Sirius eventually took pity on them and went to help the young Longbottom out, teaching the two children some simple games to play. Hagrid joined in as well, although he and his massive coats acted more as a climbing wall than anything else.

When it finally came time to leave, Dahlia courtsied to each guest as they walked into the fireplace, an exhausted smile on her face.

When Neville and Augusta went to leave, Neville turned back towards the room at the last second. He started walking towards Dahlia, and a surprised look crossed her face, questioning what the boy wanted to say.

Dahlia (and everyone else in the room) was even more shocked when it wasn't Dahlia he walked up to, but Lily Potter. Lily stood frozen for a second, puzzled at the serious look on the young boy's face.

"M-Mrs. Potter, I would like to request that I be granted permission to return to your residence at your convenience again in the near future. I-I would-d like to v-visit Dahlia." He finished with a stiff, overly formal bow that had a rare look of approval cross Augusta's face.

Lily, Dahlia, Sirius and even Dumbledore and McGonagall had matching looks of surprise across their face. Dumbledore in particular knew the lad quite well, but had never heard him speak with as much force, even through his stutter.

Lily took a moment to wipe the shocked look from her face before agreeing, on the condition that Neville refer to her as Lily from then on, and that he never be so formal in her house. Augusta looked rather put out by that second part, but nodded her approval as well.

Neville turned to look at Dahlia. She had both hands holding the rim of the hat, and it was pulled so low that her eyes could just be seen peaking out from underneath. Most of her face was obscured by her wrists and forearms.

He smiled hesitantly, no longer blushing but still slightly embarrassed by acting so overly formal. He turned quickly and trotted over to the fireplace, before vanishing into it alongside his grandmother.

Dumbledore bid farewell after that, but not before Dahlia snuck in a gentle tug on his beard, and bid them all goodnight.

McGonagall finally asked for her hat back, which Dahlia grudgingly returned. Then McGonagall strode into the fireplace and disappeared in a poof.

This left Dahlia, Lily and Sirius alone in the house. The moment McGonagall left, Dahlia began to yawn. Her eyelids grew heavy and she swayed ever so slightly. A deep chuckle emanated from behind her, and her godfather hoisted her up into his arms. The feeling was very different from when Mum did it. Uncle Siri's arms were so much larger, and they didn't shake at all under her weight. She felt snug, secure in a way she rarely did, even as he carried her up the dangerously narrow and steep stairs to her attic bedroom. By the time he laid her in her bed and tucked her in, she was already asleep.

"I don't know if I've ever seen her that happy, Lils" Sirius Black said, a tired smile in place of his normal mischievous one.

"I doubt she ever has been that happy before, padfoot" She replied wearily.

The look of concern on her face brought a slight frown to Sirius's. As if she knew what he was about to ask, Lily answered quickly.

"I haven't given her a very good life, Sirius. She's only been outside of the Fidelius once before, and even then it was just a bout of accidental magic. You saw her today... how she was with Neville? She's normally so talkative, so playful and so... lively. But as soon as she meets someone her age, she's so shy she can barely talk to him and she hides under a hat all night. I'm just worried... what if I can't prepare her right? Can't teach her how to make friends or to treat her peers? What if she just becomes closed off, what if..."

"Lils" Sirius cut her off. "You can't worry about that right now. She's only ever known us, and a few other adults. Of course she's going to be shy around other kids her age. That may never fully change, but it will get better with time. Besides, she made a friend today, didn't she? Give her time to open up a bit before you worry about her being too closed off."

Lily just sighed, agreeing half out of not finding a way to argue with him and half out of being too tired. The glass of firewhiskey from dinner didn't help either.

"Thank you, Sirius" She said sincerely.

One of his eyebrows raised slightly.

"For what?"

"For helping fill the gap James left in Dahlia's life."

Neither spoke a word after that. There were some things that still hurt too much too talk about.

* * *

Bright green eyes stared out of a train car, watching mile after mile of Scottish countryside fly by. The messy shock of black hair hung nearly to the young boy's shoulders, not dirty but wild and untameable. There was something feral about the boy, as if he had not grown up in any sort of civilized manner. The way he stared for too long without blinking, completely still in his seat, had already caused several people he had shared the booth and table with to get up and move. He paid none of them any mind, staring out the window with an intensity no eight, almost nine year old should have had.

A man cleared his throat from behind the boy. He didn't react for several seconds, before slowly turning his entire body to look at the train... conducter? Conductor? Employee? Official? The boy couldn't seem to find the word, although he did try quite hard.

"Ah, young lad, do you happen to have a parent with you? An uncle or guardian or _some_ adult, perhaps..?" The train _person_ said somewhat hesitantly, not afraid but clearly uncomfortable.

The boy said nothing, staring straight into the train person's eyes. A startling, almost unnatural green meeting a soft blue.

"Indeed, sir, I am here." The deep voice came from behind, and those blue eyes lit up in surprise at the sudden sound.

A man dressed all in black muggle clothing stepped into the booth, sitting next to the boy. The man's black eyes locked onto the soft blue, which glazed over instantly.

"Of course sir. Good to see everything is in order." He left briskly, forgetting that there had ever been a man and a boy there in the first place.

There was a moment of silence, during which the man could feel the boy staring at him, before the boy eventually spoke.

"How do you do that? You make eye contact, then their eyes go glossy and they do whatever you want. I've tried it but they just stare back for a while and then walk away."

The man sighed, resigning himself to being the satisfy-er of the boys unhealthy levels of curiosity.

"It is a rather tricky art, one which I don't believe has a true name. It combines legillimency, the _confundus_ charm and the _imperius_ curse into a non verbal, wandless spell. Much harder to learn than any of it's three components, but with a few added benefits, namely being untraceable by the ministry, even if they examine the memories and mind of the victim." The man deadpanned, knowing the boy would remember every word down to the syllable.

The boy's memory was scarily good, sometimes. For spells and magic, at least, or whatever he found interesting. Anything else, on the other hand...

"Teach me."

The man raised a single eyebrow.

"You're not even nine years old."

The boy _still_ hadn't blinked.

"It's a long train ride. Teach me."

Unable to restrain another sigh, the man double checked his silencing charm and the repellant charm.

"We'll begin with working on the three foundation spells..."

* * *

It was several hours later that the train came to a stop, nearly empty of passengers. The black haired man shifted, before nudging the now sleeping boy next to him and rising into the aisle. The boy was awake in seconds, those eerie green eyes suddenly far more alert than they should have been for someone who had just awoken. The rather odd duo strode quickly off the train and out under a heavy, grey storm cloud. The rain had yet to start, but both could smell it in the air, along with the twinge of coming lightning. The muggle clothing the two wore did little to keep out the chill, and both quietly longed for the heavy black cloaks they were more accustomed to. But they posed as muggles, for now, as there were too many witches and wizards in this town who could see through a simple illusion charm and strolling the streets in a floor length black cloak would attract far too much attention.

The rain started all at once, after only a few minutes of walking. Both were drenched to the bone in seconds, the torrential rains and sudden winds buffeting them and pushing the younger, smaller boy from side to side as he walked, unable to fully resist the push. As the boy started to slow, the man grumbled in annoyance and grabbed the boy again, bringing him close and steadying him. The shared warmth helped the boy almost as much as the supporting hand did. He was still unusually skinny, after all.

When the man stopped, he did so as suddenly as the rain had come, without word of warning. The boy stopped too, practically hugging the man's side and glancing with wide eyes at the house they had stopped in front of. Neither said a word at first, but both could feel the magic emanating from the building, coupled with a profound sense of _wrongness._

Something dark was within, even the boy was sure of it.

"Stay" the man commanded. He never was one to speak more than necessary.

The warmth left the boy along with the man, rain quickly filling the gap and pulling away the lingering feeling of closeness. The man strode towards the door drawing a black wand of yew from his pocket, before quietly unlocking the door and disappearing inside.

With a silent, internal sigh, the boy looked for a place to sit, finding a bench nearby, from which he could still see the doorway.

 _This shouldn't take long,_ he thought.

It was then that the first crack of thunder could be heard in the distance.

* * *

Inside the house, the man walked in absolute silence. The narrow hallways and empty rooms with open windows were dark and cold, rain spraying inside and tattered white curtains billowing in the wind. The house was mostly dark, only the drab grey light from the windows illuminating the building. If it weren't for the wind and the slight creaking of the old house itself, the rooms would have been dead silent.

The man kept his wand high, in front of his eyes in a way slightly reminiscent of how muggle police carried their handguns when searching a house. He rounded corners slowly, ready at any second to launch a curse. Room after room he searched, both bottom and top floors, growing ever more frustrated at the lack of _anything_ he found inside. The bedrooms were empty except for the master which had a used mattress laying on the floor and a single dresser, the kitchen had no sink or fridge and most of the cupboards had lost their doors... there was simply _nothing_. The house was barely a shell, long since abandoned. But still the sense of dark magic and horrible things permeated the air, thicker even than the rain outside. He simply couldn't find the _source_ of the feeling, however hard he tried.

" _Find anything?"_

The man jumped in surprise in a very undignified way, cursing under his breath. _Why the hell had he taught that stupid boy to walk silently..._

Sure enough, the boy had seemingly just _appeared_ in the house right behind the man. Bright green eyes stared widely around the room, as if studying it. How the boy could study a room that was completely empty, the man had no idea.

"No, this place was abandoned several months ago, it seems. Our lead is dead" The man sighed.

The boy simply nodded, still looking around the room slowly, before suddenly stopping, locked onto a seemingly random piece of wallpaper. He walked forwards, reaching out to trace his fingers along the wall, following a crooked line around the room towards the doorway to the hall.

 _What in Merlin's name is the boy doing...?_ The man thought, watching with an increasingly puzzled face as the boy seemed to follow some sort of trail only he could see.

The boy walked to the base of the staircase, then slowly ascended, tracing the railing along the side. He stopped about a third of the way up, staring at a single handrail that was strangely well worn... and then the boy tugged on it.

A painting of a clock tower the boy hadn't even noticed before fizzled out of existence, revealing a narrow opening barely large enough to stand in, occupied only by the base of a ladder. Without hesitation the boy stepped inside and began climbing, all the way until he reached a trapdoor at the top. As he had climbed higher, the sickening feeling of dark magic had grown stronger, until it actually made the boy hesitate, something very rare for him. Still, he climbed the rest of the way, reaching a trapdoor at the top. Taking a long, slow breath, he pushed open the heavy wooden door, letting it slam onto the ground with a dull _thunk._ As soon as the trapdoor was open, the _wave_ of dark magic that washed over him nearly pushed him off the ladder. While there was no real physical force pushing him, his own revulsion was enough to create the illusion. He gulped, before climbing the rest of the way into the hidden attic.

The next thing that he noticed was the smell. It was _horrible._ He gagged immediately, regretting his decision to enter the house to escape the storm. He dropped to his knees, hands covering his mouth in an effort to hold down the sandwich he had back on the train. Tears leaked from his eyes even as he held them as tightly shut as he could.

"Merlin..." The man had climbed the ladder as well, and now stood beside the boy, eyeing the room with disgust.

The center of the floor was covered in a massive rune, an archaic, twisted and dark symbol which the man didn't recognize immediately. The rune was painted entirely in blood, and the now rotting carcasses of several sheep were piled in the corner, the source of the atrocious smell. Flies coated most of the rune, the air and the corpses in the thousands, turned portions of the room black.

The boy finally got to his feet, choking down bile and staring with wide, horrified eyes at the vile room. He stepped in closer to the man, who stepped away and began walking to the other end of the room where a desk sat, covered in parchments. First picking up what turned out to be an old letter, the man began reading, scanning over every paper he could find. The boy soon joined him and the two sorted through the seemingly endless papers, before finally one caught the interest of the man. It was a letter, but written in a style the man was sadly familiar with.

 _C's_

 _Collected the article from Edinburgh, leaving it with W for safekeeping._

 _Will meet you in Herpo's Fjord, W thinks there might still be something there._

 _\- A_

The C's the letter was addressed too must have been the Carrow's. W could only be Wilkes, meaning the rumors of the twisted man's death must be false... and the A signed at the end was one the man recognized.

 _Avery._

It seemed the man was now hunting _four_ Death Eaters, instead of just the twins, now. It was both a blessing and a curse, less work to track them all down, but taking on all four at once... and what was the 'article' that they mentioned? Whatever it was, the man knew he couldn't let them keep it. No good could come out of it.

But none of that was the worst part. _Herpo's Fjord..._ what could they possibly think was there? Even after...

The man's thoughts were interrupted by the boy, tugging at his sleeve. Reminded that they were in a _ritual room_ , filled with _corpses,_ the man decided to think on it later, and began to walk the boy towards the ladder.

Before reaching the top of it, the boy stopped dead in his tracks, still staring at the large, morbid rune in the center of the floor.

" _What... what is it?"_ The boy whispered, fear lacing his voice.

The man didn't hesitate to answer.

" _Everything we stand against, boy"._

* * *

 _A/N:_

 _Well, there's chapter 3. I know, it's annoying constantly calling two of my characters "the boy" and "the man", but the reason why I did this will be explained next chapter so don't worry.  
_

 _This is also the first chapter I wrote on my laptop, instead of my phone, so hopefully I got the formatting a bit better._

 _Some of you may notice that the story's title has been changed. It's no longer "Harry Potter and the House of Serpents", since I searched it up and there's already a story with that title, which I didn't know about before._

 _Sad days for me :(_

 _Regardless, this new title, The Necromancer's Notebook, fits the story a lot better anyways, even if it isn't the original title I came up with._

 _I briefly renamed it "Harry Potter and the Necromancer's Notebook", but honestly I like the shorter version more._

 _ANYWAYS, what did you all think of Dahlia? She's got a lot of growth to go through as a character but I hope I gave her a good introduction, since she's a pretty important character._

 _Next chapter should be up within another week, and I'm going to try making it even longer than this one. I still feel like the chapters are too short._

 _-D.A_


	4. The Journey Begins

The streets of London were _noisy._ Cars and pedestrians seemed to almost compete, each trying to drown the other out all while music played from dozens of cafe's and storefronts. It was a chaotic, lively rumble of noise that permeated the air, saturating it with the sounds of business and life. Four stories above it all, in the open window of a hotel room, the green eyed boy sat reading. The windowsill was just wide enough for the skinny boy to fit on, and just long enough that he could rest his back on one wall and his feet on the other. On his knees he rested a musty, old, leather bound textbook, the title of which had faded out of legibility, but was still readable inside. Several hundred pages on the topic of magic basics, not the simple spells taught to first years in school, but rather on the underlying magic that created the spells themselves. Magical theory may not have been the most interesting of subjects, but it was still better than the last textbook he had been given...

That one had been a thousand pages on nothing but goblin rebellions... something that sounded exciting, until you actually _opened_ the darn thing.

He shuddered thinking about it, shaking his head to clear it of the horrors of those boring days. He suddenly snapped the book shut with a loud _thump_ , tossing it carelessly onto the floor beside him, next to a crumpled pile of his old clothes. Well, really his _only_ other clothes, as he currently only had the two sets. One muggle set of jeans, a shirt and a bland hoodie, and a wizarding set of basic black robes. The robes truly belonged to the black haired man and were enchanted to shrink down to the boy's size when he put them on, hardly ideal however. The boy still accepted it though, remembering clearly what the man had said when questioned on the topic.

 _"No," the man snapped, "No new robes. We don't go to Diagon, never. Too many people, too many chances I could be recognized or you could be questioned. No one sees us. Ever."_

It had actually been one of the most descriptive times that the man responded to a question that wasn't about magic directly. Usually the man simply said _no_ and left it at that.

He glared daggers at the door of the hotel room, as if it were somehow the _door_ that kept him locked inside and not the strict rules the man set. It was normal for the two of them to "borrow" hotels and apartments. Anytime the man had something important, or dangerous, to do then he would simply leave the boy behind with the same set of instructions each time.

 _Do not leave the room. Do not make noise. Do not practice magic. Do not be a dunderhead._

He wasn't sure he fully understood the last one, not yet knowing what a _dunderhead_ was, but he had never been reprimanded before, so he figured he must not be one. He mostly stayed near the window and read whatever books he had until the man came back, and they went out on their way once again.

 _It should be soon,_ he thought, looking at the sun which was finally starting to fall behind the horizon. The man had said he would be back that day, and had never lied before...

The boy yawned, hours of study catching up with him rather quickly. He stretched slowly, somewhat catlike and silhouetted against the light streaming in from the window. With a final, lazy look over the streets, he turned from the window and made his way to one of the bedrooms, not bothering to close the door behind him. He collapsed onto the bed and was asleep in seconds.

Xx~xX

 _The boy, appearing several years younger, stood close to the serious looking black haired man, holding onto the corner of his jacket as they marched through a crowded city street. People's eyes seemed to blur, becoming unfocused when they looked at the pair, without ever noticing that it was happening. They could see the two wizards, but were unable to remember even the faintest details of them. The boy had tried repeatedly to hold the man's hand, like he saw other children doing with their own parents, but the man would instantly pull his free each time. It confused the kid, but he decided not to question it for the moment. He often annoyed the man with too many questions, and the man could be snappish when annoyed._

 _"Papa?" A little girl called, as her and her parents walked by._

 _"Oui, Charlotte?"_ _The man, the father, responded._

 _The boy had discovered that in some places, people spoke in funny words that he didn't understand. He listened carefully as the family chatted happily away in a soft, flowing sort of language which he found very pleasant to listen to. The conversation faded as the family walked further away, replaced by more conversations and the faint sound of music. He didn't know which instrument it was, either._

 _"Potter, listen to me" the man snapped, although the boy would surely have not heard him had it not been for the subtle whack on the back of the head that came with it._

 _The boy glanced up in surprise. He knew his name was Potter, of course, but the man so rarely used it that on most days he had to stop and think to remember the name. It still sounded foreign to him, although it certainly caught his attention when it was used._

 _The man grumbled lowly, more of a growl than anything else really. He was annoyed. The boy hadn't been listening again, his attention spent on the people around them. He grinned up sheepishly at the man in silent apology_.

 _The man went on to talk about keeping their heads down, hiding out in yet another hotel and other things. Potter wasn't really listening again, just pretending to, occasionally nodding along. The rules and this conversation were always the exact same, so why bother?_

 _The small snippets of conversation all around him were far more interesting. Although he didn't speak a word of the language, it was fun to imagine what all the people were talking about. The only thing Potter could truly make out were names, Jacque, Pierre, Anise... they sounded different from the other words._

 _It was then, and only then, that the young boy finally came to a realization. Something he had never even thought of before, since it had always been that way, as far back as he could remember..._

 _He didn't know the man's name._

 _The man who had raised him, taken him in and taught him about the magical and mundane worlds alike. The man who told him about his own birth, the attack which left his birth father dead and the rest of his family unaware of his very existence..._

 _And he had never learned the man's name. Why?_

 _"Hey," the boy began, hesitation clear in his voice. "Why haven't you ever told me your name?"_

 _The man visibly stiffened at the question. Black eyes met green, glaring downwards intensely._

 _"We have been travelling for years, child. If I wanted you to know my name, I would have told you long ago."_

 _"But that still doesn't answer my question," Potter accused._

 _The man sighed, the intensity of his gaze lowering somewhat as he went back to scanning the streets._

 _"My name is much better known than my face. With the enemies we both have, any information you possess could become theirs. Veritaserum, legillimency... even torture. They would stop at nothing to pry any information from your head, especially information about me. I'm quite popular, you see," the man deadpanned, his dry sense of humour creeping into the last sentence._

 _"They could hurt you?" The boy responded bluntly._

 _"Yes, they could, but I was talking about what they could do to **you** not me..."_

 _"But if they make me tell them your name, they can find you and hurt you."_

 _His green eyes were steely now, hardened into something no child of his age should be capable of._

 _"They believe me to be dead, boy. I would like it to remain that way as long as possible."_

 _The boy nodded, and the two continued walking. For a few minutes, there was a heavy silence between the two. A silence which the man broke quite suddenly._

 _"It's French," he said._

 _Potter glanced up at him, not understanding._

 _"The language they're speaking. It's called French. We're in a place called France right now."_

 _The boy smiled suddenly. He hadn't even needed to ask the question, the man simply knew him well enough to answer anyways._

Xx~xX

A rather rude shove in the shoulder brought Potter out of his dream, a memory from last year. The man stood at his bedside, dressed in strangely thick, grey robes which looked _far_ too warm to be worn in this weather. He carried a large bundle of identical fabric in his arms, which he threw on top of the boy's head.

Rolling around slightly for a moment, caught up in both the sheets and the robes now covering his head, the boy tried to ask what was happening but only managed a muffled yelp. Luckily the man didn't need to be asked, and began explaining in a rushed and somewhat out of breath voice.

"We leave in a few moments, get yourself changed now, Potter. You're going to want something warmer than those muggle clothes," He began. "We have until midnight when they get there, we _have_ to be there first."

He eyed the rapidly setting sun out the window, as Potter quickly changed into the heavy fur robes and walked up beside him. The man began rapidly cleaning off the desk, where he had laid out dozens of papers and trinkets of various sizes, each of which he thew into a small leather bag. The bag was enchanted to be much larger inside, so even when he scooped what looked almost like a muggle microscope which stood several feet high into it, the bag didn't run out of space or even grow heavier.

"Where are we going?" Potter was catching on to the almost panicked rush the man was in, speaking much more quickly than normal.

"You remember the blood rune, from the house back in Scotland?"

Potter nodded.

"It was a locator. Something to search out dark artifacts, over an extreme range. I'd use it myself, if it didn't take such a heavy sacrifice to work... The Death Eater's we've been hunting have been using those runes to look for something _terrible,_ and they believe they've finally found it, although I can't understand how it could be _there."_

"Where is _there?"_

The man finished packing up his bag, and a quick spell tidied the hotel room until it was like they had never been there.

"Herpo's Fjord. An inlet damn near as far north as you can go in Europe, miles from any towns or villages. It was searched years ago by the Dark Lord himself, but even after months of combing through the place, none of us could find a thing."

Potter gulped. It wasn't that the man had just admitted to helping the Dark Lord search for an artifact that bothered him, he had known the man was an ex-Death Eater for as long as he could remember... it was that the Dark Lord himself had spent _months_ searching the place. Whatever was there had to be both incredibly well hidden and as dark as dark could get.

"So we have to find it, whatever _it_ is, before midnight tonight?"

The man turned back to Potter, his face a hardened mask.

"I doubt they'll find anything tonight. But even if there's the tiniest chance that they _could_ find something, we _have_ to get it first."

Potter shuddered at the weight in the man's voice. He was always serious, but now there was a sense of determination there that the boy rarely heard. This wasn't a normal trip, or mission, the stakes were all too real this time.

With all of their possessions now packed, the man reached out an arm, which Potter readily took hold of. In his other hand the man held a small black stone, the only thing the man hadn't put in his bag. Muttering a spell under his breath, he cracked the fragile stone between his fingers, and it quickly dissolved into a fine powder that floated in the air around both of them. There was a sudden surge in magic, so violently powerful that even a muggle might have felt something.

Then, with a single, loud _crack_ , they both disappeared into thin air.

Xx~xX

It was immediately apparent why they needed the heavy fur cloaks. Not a second after they had apparated, a ferociously bitter wind blasted the Potter heir around the ears, sending icy needles of pain into his skull. He was still nauseous from the _extremely_ long range apparition, but now had to fumble with rapidly numbing fingers and shaking arms to get his hood up.

Before he could manage, a hand roughly pulled the hood over his head, and a quick warming charm took away most of the shaking. Potter went to mutter a quick _thank you_ but the man was already walking away, leaving deep trenches in the knee-high snow.

He blinked rapidly, spinning quickly around to glance in all directions. To one side, he could see a vast expanse of snow and rock, not even a tree in sight to break the white monotony. To his other side, where the man was currently headed, was a cliff that dropped off into a violently churning ocean, white and frothy like the mouth of a feral beast. All he could hear was the bitter cry of the wind and the crashing of waves against the cliff face far below.

Potter had been to a lot of places in his life, but never somewhere like _this._ He took off at a lurching run, trying to catch up to the man who made no signs of slowing down.

" _Where are we?!"_ He shouted, barely able to hear his own voice over the wind.

The cloaked man had reached the edge of the cliff, where he now stood, inches away from a certainly fatal drop. He gave no sign he had heard. Instead, he stepped forwards, _off the edge_ , and calmly stood still _floating in mid air._ Potter gaped at him, eyes wide, as the man began walking downwards as if on a staircase...

Potter stood on the edge, eyes wide as he watched the man slowly make his way down towards a rocky beach far below. Stepping forwards with one foot first, he was shocked to find that there really _was_ something there, something solid. He simply couldn't see it. That changed however, the moment he put both feet over the cliff's edge. Where before there had been only open air, a spiraling stone staircase now stood, impossibly tall and strangely free of snow except for the railings. Shaking his head and wondering at what kind of magic would be needed to hide something of this size from sight, he took off chasing after the man again.

They met again at the very bottom, now standing on a beach of stones and boulders, the icy spray already causing ice to build on the man's slight goatee, and the fur trim of their cloaks. Potter shivered heavily, but continued following after the man, slipping on ice constantly, which was somehow even worse than dragging his feet through the snow from above.

They walked like this, the eight year old Potter heir barely managing to keep up with the grey figure in front of him, for what felt like hours. It could very well have been only a few minutes, Potter thought, but the horrible cold and constant near-falls on the ice dragged time out until every second felt like an hour. Slowly, he began losing track of time, eyes locked onto his boots and his hood pulled as low over his face as he could get it. Every now and then, he would glance upwards, each time finding the man slightly farther away than last time, but always within sight. At least there was only one direction he could be going...

As he walked, he began to notice something. It happened slowly at first, barely perceptible, but as he walked along the shore he felt the air growing colder. At first, he thought he was just losing body heat but no, as it became nearly _unbearable_ he realized what it truly was.

Dark magic, but not like anything he had felt before. Travelling with the man, he had come close to powerful dark magic so many times, he knew the feeling by heart. Each group of magic had it's own feeling... blood magic felt sickening, like a festering wound or the smell of rotting flesh, curses left a sour taste in his mouth and on the rare occasion he had come across it, the darker elemental magics like fiendfyre had a raw power that sent ripples all the way through his body.

This... _this_ was something different. It was cold, like the icy spray from the ocean and the biting wind, but... it wasn't truly _unpleasant_ , like the other dark magics he had felt. The physical cold was much worse, now that he thought about it.

The feeling slowly grew stronger, his skin paler and and the clouds that came from his breath larger and more tangible. It seemed it settle into his skin, cold but in a way he couldn't truly compare to anything else. He was pleased to find that as he concentrated more on the _magical_ feeling of cold, the physical one seemed to fade away. Of course he was still freezing, but it slipped from his mind until he could almost ignore it completely.

Bothered by the winds no longer, he took another glance up to see that the man had stopped, finally reaching whatever his destination had been. To Potter, it seemed like he was staring at a blank section of the cliff face, although after the invisible staircase from before he doubted it was truly blank. Hurrying to catch up, he quickly found his place by the man's side, both of them examining the same piece of stone.

It was bare, smooth from years of ocean spray, except for a single point in the very center, where a tiny carving of a snake rested. It was coiled over itself many times, before turning it's head to the side with it's fangs bared and a strange crest along the top of it's head proudly displayed.

" _Is... is this it?"_ Potter asked.

The man nodded, his face somewhere between scarily determined and horribly troubled.

"Wasn't there supposed to be an artifact here?"

"There is... supposedly. Inside."

"Inside?" The boy wondered, looking around widely for any sort of door.

"Open it," the man commanded.

"How?"

The man shot him a slightly pointed glare, and all at once he understood.

"I thought you told me never to use that..?" Potter asked, recoiling slightly. The last time he had used it...

" _Open it,"_ The man snapped, anger creeping into his voice.

He swallowed nervously, then cleared his throat. When he spoke, it wasn't English that left his lips, but a disturbing, drawling _hiss._

 _"Open,"_ the boy commanded, his green eyes uncertain and afraid.

At his word, the walls of the cliff themselves opened to reveal a cave blacker than any night the boy had ever seen.


	5. The Keep

A/N: I recommend listening to _Goetia - Dark Magic_ for this chapter. Will help set the theme and give you the best experience.

Xx~xX

The cave didn't go far.

Potter hadn't been sure what to expect, but a sudden stone wall blocking off the cave in front of them was far from his mind. The stones were easily four times the size of the boy and must have weighed several thousand pounds each, and they were stacked neatly exactly like bricks up to the ceiling. A large gap stood in the middle, where a doorway or gate must have been at some point, although no traces of it existed now. Perhaps it had been wood and rotted away, or destroyed... he would never know.

The man simply strode through the doorway, heedless of the awestruck boy behind him. Potter shook himself out of his daze and trotted along to catch up, his boots making slapping sounds that echoed throughout the rather large cavern.

Once inside, he had to struggle not to simply stop and stare at the place once again. The walls stretched upwards higher than the cave ceiling had been, forming ornate arched peaks far above. Pillars lined the long room they stood in, easily ten feet thick and made of the same grey stone as the rest of the building. In places along the distant walls it even looked as if there had been windows at one point, although only the stone of the cave itself could be seen through them. He wondered what windows would be doing on an underground _castle,_ of all things, but then again in the wizarding world... he had seen stranger things.

An old, faded carpet lined the length of the room between the pillars on either side. How it remained in such a good state after who knows how long since the place had been built, Potter could only guess. Of course there were charms and enchantments to preserve things, but this place looked _centuries_ old, at the very least. Even the Ministry didn't have access to wards that powerful...

The cold wasn't as bad inside, either. It was still damp and miserable, but the fur cloak seemed to be enough, for now at least.

"What is this place?" Potter's eyes were wide and unblinking as he followed the man closely, slowly scanning the room with sudden intensity.

" _Herpo's Keep._ Supposedly, Herpo the Foul's grave."

Potter blinked. He had heard of Herpo the Foul, somewhere... one of the books the man had given him, years ago. His green eyes began to glint in the way they always did when he was thinking, staring unseeing at his boots. His brow furrowed in concentration and his eyes narrowed, before he finally remembered.

"Herpo the Foul, a Dark Wizard from... Rome? No, Greece. Credited with the creation of the first Basilisk, which he made by hatching the egg of a chicken underneath a toad..."

The man snorted.

"Don't believe _everything_ you hear in books, boy. If it were so easy to hatch a _basilisk,_ every witch or wizard who so much as _dabbled_ in the dark arts would have one. That old story of the chicken egg under a toad is something the Ministry came up with, to hide the truth."

"... and also the creator of the _horcrux."_

The man visibly stiffened at the mention of the dark artifact. Potter couldn't see his face, but it was easy enough to imagine the tight-lipped grimace he wore and the clenching of his jaw. His eyes would be narrowed too, something dangerous held within.

"The Dark Lord searched this place years ago. He brought a select few Death Eaters along, myself and two others. We searched the place top to bottom. Each of us could _feel_ that something was here... but we never found a thing. The Dark Lord was... _not happy_ with our failure."

Potter flinched slightly. He had heard stories about Voldemort's cruelty before. He had no desire to hear more.

They reached a doorway, a normal sized one this time. Their path lit only by a simple _lumos_ from the man's wand, they made their way deeper into the keep.

A thought occurred to Potter. He knew what a horcrux was, and from what he knew of them...

"What was Herpo's horcrux?"

The man glanced back at him, a surprised look in his eye.

"No one knows. Supposedly it was destroyed, although how that happened and what the object was... I can't say."

"So if no one knows what it was, or how it was destroyed, then how do we know it _was_ destroyed?"

 _B...o...d...m...l...d_

 _...What?_

For a second, in the back of his mind, Potter had thought he heard something. Like the memory of a whispered voice, although what the voice had said was far too faint to make out. He frowned, looking around to find a speaker somewhere, but finding only himself, the man and an empty hallway.

 _Strange..._

In his concentration, he had missed whatever the man had responded to his question.

The man had also gained some distance again, and Potter hurried to catch up once more.

 _H..ir...f...m...e_

 _There it was again!_

It didn't seem to come from any direction in particular, but rather from everywhere at once, as if the keep itself were talking to him. He looked to the man, silent question in his eyes, but the man simply kept walking... as if he hadn't heard a thing.

Before Potter could mention the strange voice, they came to another doorway, this one though was blocked off with stones and mortar, with a familiar looking snake carved into the center. Even through the stones blocking the doorway he could feel the dark magic radiating outwards. He had been able to feel it even outside the Keep, but here it was so thick that he could practically _see_ the waves of it in the air.

His stomach still churned at the thought of using it, but he _hissed_ a command at the door without being asked to this time.

The moment the first crack appeared in the stones, a great rush of air burst outwards, sending the boy's hair wildly flying in all directions and forcing him backwards a step. The air was so cold that frost began to form on his eyelashes and his lips turned blue almost instantly, as a violent shudder wracked his body from the sudden drop in temperature.

But Potter barely noticed all of it, for with the gust of air, whatever dark magic had been contained within was set loose. The cold feeling under his skin was no longer just _cold._ It was as if his very blood had frozen, and frost had formed inside his tissues and bones. His skin turned deathly pale, highlighted by the unnatural, unnerving green of his eyes and the jet black tangle of hair on his head.

His heart skipped a beat. He choked back something for a second, then gulped and exhaled slowly. His breath wasn't visible in a cloud anymore, like the man's was. The man didn't seem to notice, and the boy was too caught up in this... _feeling_ , to bother pointing it out. Every other dark magic had repulsed him. Blood magic, soul magic, rituals and artifacts, curses and hexes... _everything_ had felt _wrong_ before. But this...

Something about this felt _right._

His eyes, so brightly green they nearly glowed in the dark, were wider than they had ever been before. He felt as if he had just drank a dozen cups of coffee, and downed a few energizing potions afterwards. He had _never_ been so awake before in his _life._

The man simply started down the staircase. It had always been like this, to an extent. The man just expected Potter to keep up, and very rarely paused to take notice of if the boy actually managed to do so.

On this instance, the boy waited a moment, watching the glow from the man's wand fade quickly as he spiraled downwards. Once the light was just barely visible, he followed, keeping just on the inside of the light from the _lumos_.

 _Bl...d...o...y...b...od_

 _He...r...f...h...ir_

His ears perked up, hearing the strange voice again. It seemed to be _calling him,_ beckoning him forwards. There was a slight tug, something magical that he felt in his core, guiding him in a certain direction. It was down below, not far away at all, and off to his left...

The boy let his pale hand drag along the stone wall, as he reached the bottom of the spiral staircase. It opened into a short hallway, at least short compared to the one above. This one had doors lining either side, with a balcony that stretched along both side walls and the far wall. More doorways could be seen on the second level, while a much larger doorway flanked by unlit torches sat in the middle of the rear wall.

Without warning, the torches lit with a green fire, revealing the shadowed figure of the man in between them. He stood facing the doorway, arms folded behind his back, glancing back over his shoulder impatiently at the boy. His hood cast a shadow over his face, and with the torches lit behind him he cast a menacing shadow that stretched along the floor all the way to the boy's feet. It flickered and danced in the light, something dangerous contained within.

The boy had never felt scared of the man. The man was the closest thing he had ever known to a father, even if he was distant and uncaring. But in this moment, even though he couldn't feel it himself, he could see why others would be _terrified_ of the man. The dark cloak, the tall, regal posture and the aura of magic darker than even the room around them turned the man into something more than just a person. He was a force, a power, something wicked and merciless.

He looked the spitting image of a Dark Lord.

The boy strode forwards, cloak no longer wrapped tightly around him but dragging behind him and open at the front. He no longer felt the cold, not the physical cold that is, and walked towards the center of the room, slowly taking in the ancient keep. The man was straight ahead, still waiting between the torches, although he seemed now to be rummaging through his satchel, for what the boy could only begin to guess at.

The tug he had felt back on the staircase was more pronounced down here. It pulled to the left, somewhere along the wall... possibly one of the doors? Potter made his way towards the feeling, keeping an eye on the man. If the man left the room, he would have to follow, as he had no light of his own... but at least while the man was here, the boy could explore as he saw fit.

He silently hoped the man took a long while to find whatever he was looking for in his bag.

The tug led him to one of the doors, also sealed with stone and with an engraved snake in the center. A quick hiss later and the stones parted to the sides, revealing a single, tiny, cell-like room. A slab of stone that vaguely resembled a bed sat in the corner and another unlit torch was mounted high on the wall, but otherwise the room was empty. Potter stepped inside, forcing his magic to reach outwards in an attempt to _feel_ anything that he could. If the room had been enchanted, trapped or cursed in any way, he would likely have felt something. Not that he was anywhere near being an expert, but all magic gave off a _feeling_ for those who could sense it. At the slightest hint of a curse, he was ready to bolt from the room, feeling as if he could run so fast he could take flight... but there was only the tug, and the cold feeling from the keep itself.

Still, the tug guided him towards the corner of the room which held the bed. The light from the torches out in the main room barely trickled in, but it was just enough for him to see by, and he examined the bed closer. It was more a part of the wall, sticking out at about chest height for the boy and completely unremarkable but for its oddity. So why did he feel a tug? Something was there, he was sure of it... the feeling was stronger now, the closer he came to the bed.

 _Hei...f...my...h...ir_

 _B...od...of...my...b...d_

He closed his eyes now, listening to the voice and feeling the tug which he was now sure were both part of the same thing. If he focused hard enough, he could get a slightly more accurate feeling...

 _H...ir...of...my...he..._

 _Blo...of...my...od_

He placed his hands on the edge of the bed, sliding them blindly over the smooth, icy stone. If there had been any heat left in his hands, it was quickly sucked out by the icy rock.

 _Hei...o...my...h...r_

 _Blood...of...m...bl...d_

His hands trailed farther along, towards the back wall. He was kneeling now, searching for... _what exactly?_

His hand reached an irregularity, something so barely noticeable that he certainly wouldn't have found it had the _tug_ not stopped at the same time his hand felt it. It seemed to twist a bit, thicker at the bottom but then thin at the top...

 _Another snake._ He recognized the shape now, even with it being so incredibly faded. The pointed fangs and pronounced crest on it's head were what had given it away...

 _Heir of my heir._

 _Blood of my blood._

The voice was so clear, so profoundly _real_ that it shocked the boy for a second. His eyes shot open, and he suddenly _realised_ what he was doing. _Where he was._

 _Why the hell had he gone wandering in the keep of an ancient, dark wizard? Why had he followed the trial of what was clearly dark magic?_

A raw, primal fear had just settled in the boy's heart when suddenly, underneath his fingers, the carving of the snake _moved._ It hissed, writhing and wrapping it's stone tail around the boy's fingers and holding his hand it place. He had just opened his mouth to scream when the snake snapped forwards, stone fangs plunging into his skin.

He remembered freezing, feeling venom pour into his veins, and then darkness.

Total, utter darkness.

Xx~xX

There was a horrible _throbbing_ in his head. The back of his skull felt like it had taken a bludgeoning charm dead on, and even before he was fully conscious he winced from the ache. His arms subconsciously moved to cradle the back of his head, as his knees curled up to his chest. The ground was cold and hard under his side, rough against the patch of exposed skin at his wrist. The cold magic under his skin was somehow even heavier now, so strong that he felt saturated in it. The feeling was the closest thing he had to comfort at the moment, as the venom in his veins still burned and made his stomach writhe like the snake that had bitten him. The venom burned like an itch, tingling and hurting every inch of him from the inside out. He gasped in pain, then immediately gulped back in a huge breath of air. His breathing came rapidly, tears starting to leak from his eyes, until he could take no more. He scrambled to his knees and threw up, the sound of him being sick the only thing in the utter blackness he found himself in.

He choked back what little he had left in his stomach, forcing himself not to be sick again. It had burned on the way up.

Managing to find some strength, he clamored to his feet and stumbled for a moment before finding his balance. His right hand, where he had been bitten, he kept close to him, resting across his belly which still refused to settle. He looked around, or rather, attempted to, unable to see anything in the complete darkness.

The boy opened his mouth to call out, before snapping it shut again, fear of _whatever_ might be out in the dark keeping him silent.

 _Shhhhh..._

From somewhere behind him came a rustling. He spun in place, eyes wide in an attempt to see _anything_ , but he couldn't see so much as his own hand in front of his face.

 _Shhhhhhhhhh..._

This time, it came from his left. _Was something moving..._

Again the sound came, but from his right. He struggled to control his breathing, as images of _inferi_ and _dementors_ and countless other dark creatures flooded his mind. He turned back, facing away from the sounds...

 _Shhhhhhhhhhhhhh..._

Only for the sounds to come from that direction as well.

The boy was nearly sick again. The sound was like a body being dragged across a floor, only it came from _everywhere_.

The sounds all began again at once, coming from all sides at the same time, growing louder and _louder_ as the boy shook in fear and turned slowly, trying to follow one noise or the other but unable to find where one ended and the next began.

Then as quickly as it had started, the noises stopped.

He stayed silent, except for the erratic beating of his heart and the faint puffs of his breaths.

 _"Heir of my Heir, Blood of my Blood. Speak thy name, let thine voice befall this once great place."_

The boy turned his head every direction he could, trying desperately to find the source of the voice. He could find nothing, once again. But... _heir of my heir? Blood of my blood? What did that mean?_ His heart shuddered, as if it barely could continue beating. His mind drifted back to the burning of the poison, and he wondered if he could be dying.

" _The bite shall not kill, child, for you are of my blood. Were you not, you would have already passed on to that Dark Place,"_ the voice echoed, and Potter at last placed where it was coming from.

 _It was coming from inside his own head._

" _Of course, child. I have no physical form with which to speak."_

"Who are you? W-what are you?" The boy's voice was hoarse, shaky but firm.

The voice seemed to chuckle.

 _"Your ancestor, the **greatest** of your ancestors. I am Herpo the Foul."_

The boy's eyes sharpened, and he recoiled.

" _You're a horcux,"_ he accused.

" _Indeed. You seem repulsed by the thought? Have my own descendant's forgotten of my works?"_

"I am not your descendant,He cried, although he had to choke back more vomit after the sudden outburst.

" _Silence, boy,"_ the voice commanded, and a sudden jab of pain in his head forced him to his knees. Potter waited there for a moment, in silence, before another jab of pain made him cry out and his body spasm.

" _I asked your name. You will answer."_

" _Potter."_

" _That is neither a full name, nor a fitting name for my heir. What is your true name, Potter?"_

 _"It's just Potter. I was never given any other name."_

Herpo seemed to spit, or sputter in outrage. When he spoke again, fury could be heard creeping into the edges of his voice.

" _And why was my heir given no other name than 'Potter'?"_

 _"I am not your heir!"_ He screeched in response.

An even greater pain struck his head, knocking him to his elbows and knees which were both scraped from the rough ground.

" _You are my heir. The basilisk venom would have killed you, otherwise, yet here you live. Did you think I would create a beast which could kill my own family?"_

Potter shook his head, trying not to listen but unable to as the voice came from inside rather than out.

" _You have my eyes, boy. Do you need more proof?"_

 _What?_ Herpo's eyes?

 _"Ah, yes. Of course, there are many lines with green eyes boy, but I am not speaking simply of colour. Your eyes shine with the magic you hold within you, the magic I implanted in my bloodline. Parseltongue, one of my greatest creations. Those gifted with the ability show it in the eyes, yes, those unsettling, unnatural green eyes of yours. Did you never wonder why others find them so repulsive? So disturbing? Somewhere deep in their instincts, they recognise it as a danger, the same danger they feel from a coiled snake."_

The boy tried to tune it out, but found he could not. His palms bled from where his nails had pierced the skin, and his clenched fist shook severely. Hadn't the man always said that the boy's eyes were just that? Unnerving? Unnatural? More than just that, Herpo was _right._ Muggles could never hold his gaze, they shifted and became more and more uncomfortable, then left in a hurry. Weren't his eyes exactly like the ancient dark wizard had said they were? And parseltongue... Herpo had been right about that too.

" _Why did you bring me here? And where is this place?"_ Potter managed to choke out.

 _"I did not bring you here, Potter. You came here yourself, I simply helped you along the last stretch of your journey."_

 _Then can I return? My father, I mean, the man I travel with... he will have noticed I'm gone by now. He's searching for something..."_

 _"That something would be me, boy. What else do you think creates the aura that drew you here?"_

Potter stopped, realizing the truth to it. Herpo was a _horcux,_ one that was at least a couple thousand years old. If the ancient artifact couldn't give off a feeling like that, then what could?

" _He will not find me, however. He is not of my blood, not worthy of this place. Only the basilisk venom can bring you here, and it would surely kill your 'father' before his body had hit the floor."_

A thought popped into the boy's head.

 _"Then what of Voldemort? I heard he searched this place, did he find you as well?"_

 ** _Do not speak of that line thief in my presence, Potter!"_** Herpo's voice was accented by a deep, terrifying _hiss_ so loud that Potter's chest shook from the vibrations.

" _Line thief?"_

 _"Yes, boy,"_ Herpo responded, voice still raw with anger. " _The one you speak of, Voldemort... Riddle. He came here, not long ago... a decade or two, no longer... he was searching not for me, but for power. But I saw him for what he was. A bastard child, a twisted mockery of my bloodline, vying for the results of my work as if he were a true heir. The very thought of him wandering this keep sickens me. That he was able to make his own horcrux... I am ashamed that my work would fall so low as to be used by one such as him."_

 _"His own horcrux? You speak as if he made only one."_

The slithering, dragging noise came back in full force, surrounding Potter on all sides, as the horrifying hissing noise came out of the darkness.

" _Only one? Only one?! **You**_ _speak as if he split his soul more than once! Even for a filthy, worthless thing like him... you must be mistaken, Potter. There is no one who would be so foolish, so arrogant to do such a thing."_

 _"He split his soul six times, leaving a seventh fragment in his own body."_

 _"He **WHAT?** " _Herpo's voice was so filled with rage that Potter instantly got a splitting headache, and winced from the sudden pain. The noise was growing louder in the area around him as well...

And then with a sudden rushing feeling, as if a cold breeze had been blown into his lungs, he could _see._ There was no light, and it was only a very close ranged vision, but he could _see in the dark!_ He could see black, like stone... _the walls of the cavern!_ They were closer than he had expected, and higher too. They were strangely smooth as well, and seemed to have some sort of carving, a long line that spiraled all around him, giving the illusion that he was inside a giant spool of rope.

He spun in a circle, taking it all in... and then locked up, like a deer in the headlights.

 _There was something there, by the wall... something pointed, with a large crest on the top..._

And then, the _thing_ by the wall opened its _eyes._

A brilliant green eye, which the boy quickly recognized as being the same shade as his own, stared back at him, iridescent in the darkness of the room. Tears began to flow down his cheeks, and he had to fight the urge not to throw up again. The fear was so strong it made him sick.

 _The eye was nearly as tall as he was._

The snake, and it _was_ a snake, raised it's head, and kept raising it, higher and higher. Soon it towered far over the boy who had never felt smaller in his life, tall enough even to dwarf an average house. And it's coiled body, which wrapped around the boy like a cage... _oh merlin he had thought that it was wall oh merlin no no nonono..._ began to shift, dragging the massive scales along the stone floor, making a loud _shhhhhhhhh_ noise.

The tall, proud red crest on the top of the snake's head raised itself at last, a brilliant warning sign of the apex, dark creature that it was. The body of the snake, from belly to spine was over twice as tall as the boy himself.

 _A basilisk. A real one. Here._

 _How long was it? From head to tail, how long? Three hundred meters? Four? Five?_

It bared it's fangs as it hissed again, and the boy stared upwards at a tooth that was easily the same size as an adult man.

It was _then_ that he lost the rest of the food in his stomach onto the floor.

" _This Voldemort. Does he still live?"_ Herpo sounded no less enraged, although his voice no longer brought pain to the boy's head.

" _His body is destroyed, but his horcruxes remain. We... my father and I... we hunt them. A-and his followers, what's left of them anyways."_

 _"You hunt the monstrosity? At your age?"_

Potter just nodded in response, not caring whether the ancient wizard could see him or not. _At least the basilisk could see him nod..._

" _Then you must go. Hunt him, hunt him until there is naught but memories of him in this world. Do not kill him, my child, but **erase** him. Do not let even myth and legend carry on his name. You are too young yet to understand what he has done, in splitting his soul so many times... but know this, Potter. My work was dark, but not evil. I ventured where others were afraid to go, risking myself and all I held dear to further the world of magic... and to further my own life's goal. But the things I created... many of them were failures. Doomed experiments into the world of Necromancy which others took as success, and used for their own twisted goals. Inferi, horcruxes, the basilisk, parseltongue... none are inherently good or bad, but all walk a thin line between simply 'dark' and 'evil'."_

 _"You are the first of my **true** descendants to come here since Salazar, and that was a long, long time ago. When he left, I sent him with a gift. A sliver of wood from my own staff, and a vial of my basilisks' venom, with which he made his wand. I gave him those gifts as part of a deal, Potter. He was an ambitious lad, something I always admired in my own children. He wished to create a school. I sent him away with those gifts, two of the most powerful magical objects I have in my possession, to help him in his quest."_

 _"You, Potter, have your quest as well, but I care much more deeply for your troubles than I ever did for Salazar. The line thief, that_ ** _monstrosity_** _must be stopped. He cannot be allowed to pollute my work any longer. You, not your father, not whatever wizards you call heroes in your day, but **you** will stop him. You are my heir. It is your duty. You will not turn away from this."_

The basilisk lowered it's head, until it was holding it's chin just inches off the ground. With one massive, unreadable, bright green eye it stared at the boy.

" _You too will receive my blessing, Potter. But not materials for a wand, no... that would not be right, not for you. With how young you are, you need not a powerful wand or staff, but a teacher. I regret now that I cannot leave this place, else I would train you myself... but perhaps there is something yet..."_

The boy simply stared upwards into the eye of the basilisk, which stared back in the exact same unsettling way that the boy always did. It was like looking in a mirror, only the reflection was hundreds of times too large.

" _Potter,"_ Herpo called, something strange in his voice.

" _Yes?"_

 _"What do you feel right now, child?"_ There was far more behind that question, but the boy couldn't tell _what._

" _Other than terrified out of my wits... sick, like I could throw up for days and not be better, pain, like I've been hit with too many minor curses... and cold, but I don't really notice that anymore."_

There was a pause, as Herpo contemplated what he had heard.

 _"This... cold. You do not mind it? Does it not burn like acid under your skin, like a second layer that surrounds your whole body, melting and freezing it at the same time?"_

A confused look crossed the boy's face, as he thought about it for a moment.

" _No. Just... just cold. It's almost comfortable, really. Like coming indoors on a hot summer day, or swimming in a lake during summer."_

 _"Interesting... boy, do you know what that feeling **is**?"_

He shook his head.

" _Necromancy, boy. The cold feeling is leftover dark magic from the countless experiments into the art of resurrection that I conducted in this keep. It is odd, however, that you do not find the feeling... painful, or repulsive. Even Salazar could hardly tolerate the aura in this place. Yet you claim it does not bother you at all."_

 _"I... I don't understand. It's supposed to be painful?"_

 _"It is magic as dark as magic can be, boy. Even I never fully escaped the discomfort of my work."_

The thought that he was _comfortable_ with something one of the greatest dark wizards in history was still repulsed by worried him. For the first time he found himself _wishing_ the cold were painful, and uncomfortable.

" _But... it does give me an idea. Although I supposed it is not one you will like... not at first, anyways."_

 _Uh oh._

The basilisk, flicking it's person sized forked tongue out, brought it's head directly in front of the terrified boy. It flicked the air just in front of him with it's tongue, tasting the air.

" _You require a teacher, Potter. But I cannot give you one. This is the best that I **can** give you. Study it well, and there will be few who are your equal. But be warned. Knowledge is a terrible burden, which you will carry your entire life. You will see truths in this world which will make you wish for blindness. You will hunt, be hunted, sacrifice and suffer in ways that those around you will **never** understand. Know this, Potter, that it was not I who forced this life upon you. I see now, what I did not before. That which resides in you. That which curses you, which marks you. You are bound for greatness, boy, one way or the other. This gift will help you on your journey, but in the end it is your choice how you use it."_

From the cheek of the basilisk, something seemed to squirm, and wriggle. It shifted and crawled across the basilisk's scales, before disappearing inside the corner of the basilisks mouth, and reappearing on the tip of it's forked tongue several seconds later. The basilisk stretched it's head forwards a few more inches, and Potter again found himself looking into it's eyes.

There was a slight shimmer in it's eye, and he found himself unable to move. He could see, could feel, could taste and hear and smell just fine, but his muscles were completely locked still.

 _What's happening? What's it doing?_ He tried to panic, to run or to scream or _anything_ but nothing responded. He was frozen.

The basilisk's tongue flicked out once more, coming to rest with just the corner of it's fork pressed against his left wrist. It held it's tongue there, motionless, and the boy finally got a look at what had been crawling on it before.

It was a sort of tattoo, an archaic symbol of ancient runes layered over one another and folding upwards and out, with lines depicting the cover and pages of a book.

Morbidly curious, the boy watched as the snake's massive tongue seemed to _split_ open, and the corner of the tattoo _came out._ Where before there had been ink, the cover of a black leather book could now be seen, faded in some places to a dull grey. The pages began to come out next, one by one, slowly at first, almost slow enough that he could have read the first page, and then faster and faster until hundreds or thousands of pages blurred past in the blink of an eye.

When it was all finished, a book no thicker than an average notebook lay on the snake's massive tongue. The thousands of pages must have been enchanted to take up significantly less space.

" _Oh, this will hurt quite a bit, Potter. At least for the first few times... you should get used to it after that."_

 _What?_

Then the book began folding itself again, but this time _into his wrist._ The leather cover seemed to fray apart and _worm_ it's way under his skin, folding his skin and veins out of it's way.

He screamed inside, unable to open his mouth or protest in any physical way, as the pages began folding themselves in after it. The tattoo slowly began to appear on his wrist, line by line as the notebook folded itself inside. While it looked like only ink on the surface of his skin, he could _feel something_ writhing and twisting around underneath, nestling itself in and making itself at home.

There were tears freely flowing down his cheeks when the rear cover of the book finally folded itself in. The petrification didn't seem to stop him from crying.

" _My complete works, Potter. Every spell I ever created, every experiment, every failure... all of my notes on everything I ever did as a wizard. You are now in possession of the most valuable grimoire to ever exist, boy. Use it wisely."_

The basilisk blinked slowly, and the petrification ended with it. Potter collapsed to the ground, clutching his arm close to his body and convulsing at the sickening feeling of having _something else_ inside your body. His eyes slowly rolled back, up into his head, and he knew no more.

Xx~xX

When he opened his eyes, he had a blissful moment where he believed the whole thing to be a dream. Then there was a squirming sensation inside his wrist that nearly made him vomit, and he frantically checked his wrist. An archaic tattoo vaguely resembling a book with runes spilling up and out into the air from it's pages sat prominently, taking up the whole of his forearm and wrist. It was the same spot as where his father had the faded Dark Mark.

He looked around quickly, able to see but finding no source of light at all. The doorway to his room was sealed again, but he wasn't worried about that. He could already see the tiny snake carving that would open the door for him.

Potter was in the stone bed, laying in it as if it were his own bedroom. The stone was hardly comfortable, but not as bad as he would have thought. He slid off the bed to stand on the floor abruptly, his leather boots making only the faintest of noises as they scuffed the ancient stone floor. He checked the bottom right of the bed, and sure enough, the stone basilisk that had bitten him was still there, and as he stared at it, it _blinked._

The young boy stopped, standing perfectly still with his head tipped backwards, face towards the low ceiling. He closed his eyes, taking in a deep breath and trying to make sense of everything that had just happened.

From his wrist, a faint twist of the book's pages brought him out of his trance.

Sighing, he turned, hissing _open,_ and walked towards the rapidly opening door...

Straight into the blinding wand of the black haired man.

Hissing in pain now, Potter quickly covered his eyes and flinched away from the sudden bright light.

" _So..._ so you are still alive. Good." The man's voice had started off shaky, but quickly turned into a more normal deadpan.

"Where did you go, boy? I can't open these doors without you, I watched you walk inside and had to wait here for you to return."

The boy simply turned to look at him and frowned, to which the man sighed.

"Well, did you find anything?"

The tattoo on his wrist twisted, sending a shudder up the boy's arm.

"...No, nothing at all."

Xx~xX

A/N: DAMN THIS CHAPTER WAS HARD TO WRITE.

Haven't struggled to find the right way to put things _this much_ in a long time. Was a lot of fun though, even though I had to rewrite the entire chapter basically from scratch three times...

All well!

Now we've finally gotten to the FUN parts of the story, and also the reason why it's called "The Necromancer's Notebook". As you can imagine, the little (not so little) grimoire that our protagonist has just received will be a _huge_ part of the story, and is where the majority of his powers will come from.

I said this in the first author's note but I'll say it again. Potter isn't the only hero of this story, nor will he be the most powerful. When he's older, maybe he and/or his sister/other characters will be super OP like Dumbledore or Voldemort, but they're all _YEARS_ away from that for now. So yes, Potter is a very powerful wizard and will be able to hold his own, but he isn't going to be dueling Voldemort anytime soon, okay? He and all other characters will have pretty clearly defined strengths and weaknesses, which will be obvious later in the story.

A couple of other points before I end this Authors Note:

1) I still haven't decided who to pair Harry with. (Although he doesn't have that name in this story, not yet at least.)

Feel free to leave comments telling me who you think he should be with, as I currently have several ideas and can't pick between them. Again, he WILL have a pairing and it will not be slash... I just don't know who, yet.

2) Next chapter will follow Potter again, and will contain our first real fight scene of the story. After that, I'll float around between Potter and Dahlia POV possibly even within the same chapter. It will still be Potter focused though, as Dahlia's story doesn't take off until Hogwarts starts. There will also be other chapters which follow other characters from the story too. I have a very interesting direction to take my version of Draco, seeing as Lucius _died_ back in chapter 1 at St. Mungo's. So look forwards to that, I think it'll be pretty fun and different.

3) _THERE WILL BE OC'S IN THIS STORY THAT PLAY MAJOR ROLES IN THE PLOT._ If you are introduced to a character and aren't %100 confident in who they are, especially if they aren't named, don't automatically assume it's someone who exists in canon. Dahlia obviously isn't in canon, and there are at least **_TWO MORE_** OC's with major roles to play in this story.

Now whether or not the man Potter sees as his father is an OC, or someone from canon, I'm not gonna say. Just suffice to say that the obvious answer isn't always correct.

4) **AAAAND NOW FOR THE BAD NEWS.**

 **POSSIBLE HIATUS FOR THE REMAINDER OF THE 2018 SUMMER.**

I know, we've barely gotten started but **_The Necromancer's Notebook_** may be forced into hiatus until the start of September. So only a month, but that still sucks. Basically, I'm _most likely_ going to spend the remainder of the summer working on a farm, and living out in the countryside without cell coverage or internet. It's possible I could find somewhere with free wifi, in which case I could still upload chapters regularly, but don't count on it. I'll continue writing either way though, and chapters **_will resume_** in September, but August may be pretty dry in terms of uploads.

Thank you all for reading,

-D.A Haven


	6. An Introduction, An Interlude

Malfoy Manor was a cold, heartless place. The house elves still cleaned and kept it shined and polished until the floors were like glass, still cooked the meals and tended to their master and mistress' every desire, but they could do nothing to fill the whole Lucius Malfoy had left behind. The place was no longer a home, just a house. A building, and nothing more.

Draco Malfoy despised it. Every spotless, sterile, lifeless inch of it.

His shoes made loud _clacks_ with every step he took, the only sound that could be heard in the otherwise dead air. He rather enjoyed the sound, listening to the echoes as they bounced back towards him. It was something like a heartbeat, in his mind, although just a pale imitation of one.

There was a certain skip to his step this morning though, and a near gleeful expression in his normally cold grey eyes. He clutched a tiny wooden dragon in his hands, although the shape was rough and the details unremarkable. It had taken him hours, all morning in fact, of concentrating and _pushing_ every ounce of magic he had through an old family wand to turn the simple stick into this carving, but he was immensely pleased with his work. A slight twist of his lips which most would recognize as his father's signature smirk graced his lips, although it was pure and giddy in his youth, unlike his father's which had been frightening.

The doors to his mother's study came into view. Stretching nearly to the ceiling and made of a deep coloured mahogany, they spoke of wealth and power in a way only a _Malfoy_ could afford.

Draco tried to forget that once, it had been his father's study.

He felt no need to knock and instead burst into the room, striding with a confidence he felt was well justified.

His mother slumped a bit at hearing his entrance. She was hunched over a desk, possibly hundreds of papers and scrolls strewn about in a chaotic mess, with a glass of firewhiskey in the corner. The bottle next to it was more than half empty. She held her head in her hand, stress lining every wrinkle and already creating the first streaks of grey in her jet black hair. She looked far, _far_ older than she really was.

"Mother, look! I made something _most_ impressive this timewhat do you think? Do you like it? Do you think I could enchant it to breathe _fire_?"

"Draco, I..." Narcissa sighed.

"It took me nearly since sunrise, Mother. I borrowed one of the old wands last night... I used the spell I learned from that book you bought me for Christmas. I _do_ think I've taught myself every charm in that book now, Mother."

"Draco, please, not now sweety..."

 _Why isn't she looking?_

"I read up on dragons, Mother. It's supposed to be something called a _Hungarian_ _Horntail..."_

 _Why won't she turn around?_

"Draco, I have _work_ to do..." There was a slight slur to Narcissa's words, a mix of whiskey and exhaustion. She had yet to so much as move, and kept her eyes closed, most likely due to a growing headache she couldn't seem to massage away.

Draco continued on, as if he hadn't heard her.

 _Why can't she just look at it? I worked so hard..._

"They say it's one of the most _fierce_ dragons, Mother. Did you name me after any type of dragon in particular? You and Father, that is. Or was it just after the constellation? I've been reading about _those_ too, you know..."

" _Draco, will you please just **leave me alone?**_ "

She barely raised her voice, but the sudden, stinging sharpness to her words and the snappish way she turned to look him in the eye shut the young boy up. He stared into his mother's eyes for just a moment, the look of hurt in his own eyes barely concealed by the pureblood mask he had been raised to wear.

He dropped the tiny wooden dragon to the floor, having completely forgotten about it.

" _As you wish, Mother,"_ his voice was flat, posh and aristocratic. He spoke formally, as if conversing with a stranger at a formal ball, not too his own mother.

He spun on the heel of his spotless black shoe, on a shining wooden floor and listened to the crisp _clacks_ as he walked back to the astronomically expensive door and pushed it open. His perfectly pressed and ironed black dress clothes billowed gently in the rush of air from the doors, but it did nothing to his flawlessly gelled, platinum blond hair.

Everything in Malfoy Manor was perfect, after all. Every inch of floor, every crack and every crevice.

And Draco Malfoy **_hated_** every inch of it.

 _Why couldn't she just spare a minute? Just a minute to talk, to look at what he had made? What he had made for **her?** What he had spent **all day** working on, just to impress her?_

He walked faster, tears threatening to spill.

 _Why not, just this one time?_

He broke into a run, the first tear falling.

 _She only looked at me when she was **upset** at me. She only looks at me when I've done something **wrong.**_

 _Aren't mothers supposed to listen? To look? To **be** there?_

 _Aren't mothers supposed to care? To worry and fret over their children until the kids just want **away** from them? Isn't that how it's supposed to be? The other families are **all** like that..._

Draco was crying fully now, constantly rubbing his perfectly pressed black sleeves to his eyes and pulling it away again slick and crumpled. He could barely see, but knew the manor well enough that he didn't need to anyways.

 _Aren't mothers supposed to worry?_

The thought gave him an idea. With teeth clenched and bared, doing his best not to let a single sob escape, he ran through hall after hall, a set destination in mind now.

He came to a certain closet, near the back of the manor, where empty rooms for servants lined the halls. It was the sort of place his mother never came, the sort of place he could _hide_ things.

Draco threw the closet open, and stared with red tinged eyes at what lay inside. Leather boots and arm guards, a large black cape and full outfit, a crate that rattled slightly and a single, well worn broomstick.

His fingers closed around the oak handle, drawing it out of the closet and shutting the door after. Something manic and desperate gleaned in his eyes.

 _Mothers are supposed to care._

He took off at a run to another door, which was blasted open with a burst of Draco's magic (albeit unintentionally). This door lead outside, to a large and beautifully kept courtyard of well trimmed grass and spotless stone walkways. A large stone fountain sprouted from the very center, and a forest could be seen on the far side.

His mother's study had a window which faced this courtyard.

He could see her there, head down and staring intently at the papers on her desk.

 _Mothers are supposed to **worry.**_

Malfoy took to the air.

He had never ridden in view of his mother before. She hated flying, had always said it was a waste of time... so Draco had gone flying in secret. But this time, he wanted, _needed_ to be seen.

 _Even if it meant getting in trouble._

He shot into the air at an alarming speed, pushing the old broom as fast as it could climb. His tiny frame was much lighter than the broom had been designed to carry, so it was _significantly_ faster than an old broom should have been.

He stopped, breathless, high above the manor. He looked down and was pleased to see he could still make out his mother's head through the study window.

"Hey, Mother, look! Look how high I can go!" Draco yelled, knowing fully that she couldn't hear. The manic look in his eyes was back and brighter than before.

Narcissa turned a page in her book.

Draco smiled, still breathless and pretended not to notice that she _still wasn't looking_.

"I taught myself some new tricks, Mother! Wait till you see them, Father would be so proud! I bet I'll make a great Seeker for _Slytherin_ some day, Mother!"

He dove down several feet, twirling on his broom so that he rolled upside down for a moment then _lurched_ back up out of his dive and back to a resting hover. It was actually quite an impressive manoeuvre, for someone so young.

His mother sighed at something on the papers, and rubbed her temples.

Draco's smile faltered for a moment, but flicked back into position. The look in his eyes turned even more desperate.

He leaned forwards and began a slow circle, banking in his turns and getting faster as he went. Suddenly he banked the other direction and rolled around his broom again, the force of the sudden shift in direction nearly prying him off his broom.

His mother took a sip from her glass, and turned another page.

Draco's smile faded, slowly, into something pained and hurt in levels too deep to ever heal. His heart seemed to beat out of his chest, each pounding _thump_ painful and raw. He opened his mouth to yell again, only for his voice to catch and crack.

 _No. I will not cry again. **Malfoy's do not cry.**_

 _But it hurt so much._

He dove. Fast, _way_ too fast, not just free falling but pushing the broom down as hard as it could go. The suddenly intense wind stung his already watering eyes... at least now he could pretend the _wind_ was making them wet.

 ** _Mothers are supposed to worry._**

 ** _Look, Mother. No hands. I could be hurt._**

He lifted his hands from the broom and let his fall slow slightly.

Through stinging eyes and the blur of his speed he saw into the study window.

Narcissa poured herself another glass.

 _Why, Mom? Why don't you ever look?_

An anger he didn't even realise he had been feeling was lifted, like coming down from a sugar rush. All the energy left him, and what had been tears of rage simply became so _weak_ now.

 _Why is it always work, and never me?_

And then there was the ground. It came into sudden focus, so _close_ and coming _so fast._

Adrenaline pulled him out of his head, back into the real and very _dangerous_ situation he was in.

He grabbed the broomstick tightly and yanked upwards as hard as he could, panic now coursing in every vein. The broom began to level out, pulling up and away from the grass...

But not quickly enough.

The tip of the broomstick hit first, snapping off instantly and throwing him forwards. His shoulder landed on the grass with a sickening _crunch_ and he tumbled forwards in a sprawled heap, before tucking his limbs in close to his body.

Each time he touched the ground was like a hammer blow. His back, his shoulders and knees...

He finally came to a halt, in a broken pile at the end of the courtyard. He could _feel_ the shattered bones, and the horrific dizziness that clouded his head...

There was a sudden _crack,_ the distinct sound of apparition.

 _Mother, Mother you came! You came to help me you ca..._

" _Young Master is hurt! Young Master needs help!"_

" _D-Dobby?"_ Draco's voice was as broken as his body.

The tiny house elf bounced in worry and panic.

"Young Master is hurt, hurt very, _very_ bad! Dobby will help, Dobby will fix Young Master!" The house elf was crying as he shouted.

Draco ignore him. Draco's gleaming grey eyes stared, glazed over but still focused, at a certain window.

His mother rose from her seat, and with a great sigh and another sip from her glass, turned and left the room, all without ever _looking_ out the window.

And out in the courtyard, something inside Draco, that wasn't just another bone, _broke._

 _Xx~xX_

A/N: So, there's the beginnings of my version for Draco. He'll be (hopefully) recognisable as the same character from canon, but a different version of himself. Will he still be a bit of a bully, kind of rude and mean, and always happy to start something with his enemies?

Absolutely.

Will he still be a prissy little Daddy's boy who constantly flaunts his family name and influence but never actually gets his way and always _runs_ like a little sniveling coward the moment things turn on him?

 _Hell no._

This Draco is going to be more self-reliant, powerful and overall more of a badass. He'll have a big role later in the story, come the Hogwarts years.

As for the Malfoy family itself, here's a bit of information for you ;)

With Lucius' death, the family has fallen _very_ far. Narcissa has to pay _huge_ bribes to keep herself out of Azkaban, seeing as she was the accomplice to a known Death Eater. She _also_ has to take care of the family assets until Draco comes of age, which is _far_ more than she's capable of, hence the drinking, stress and snappish way of talking to Draco. She's simply too _busy_ for him, and doesn't realise how much he needs his mother.

As for Draco, his life is gonna be very different because of this fall from grace. Crabbe and Goyle aren't going to follow him around at all, since they aren't vassals of house Malfoy anymore. Pansy isn't betrothed to Draco anymore either, since no one wants their daughter to be married off to a Malfoy in this universe.

You can imagine how different this will make Draco once he goes to Hogwarts.

And, don't get your hopes up yet, but if there's enough interest I _may_ be currently considering pairing Malfoy with Hermoine. It won't be the focus of the story **_at all,_** but I could see the two working out in this story so... we'll see. I know it's a popular pairing so I'll see if I can do it justice.

Now for other story related stuff.

There's gonna be a big section of the story which will be Pre-Hogwarts years, mostly following Potter (Harry) and The Black Haired Man in a few of their more interesting adventures. Mischief, thievery, dark magic, violence, death and family bonding await! Oh it shall be so _fun._

A little mini thing for you to think on now, as well. Harry won't be attending school for first year, I have something else planned for him ;)

Also, some of you may notice that I'm uploading before September! I got a single night where I had a chance to upload, but the next full chapter isn't ready yet so you got this instead. Just to keep you guys interested *wink wink*.

Probably won't be uploading until a week or so into September, though. I'm still living out of town without internet.

Anyways, thank you all for reading and supporting the story, leave a review with any suggestions or questions you have, and good night!

(Ah, also, I'll be doing an authors note responding to questions and reviews next update.)

-D.A Haven


	7. The Keep pt 2

A/N: _**THE TRIUMPHANT RETURN!**_

We're a bit over due, since I said the hiatus would end at the start of September (oops) but I have good reasons I swear!

Namely, moving into my first apartment and starting college are very _time consuming_. Not a lot of free time to be sitting on my laptop or phone and writing.

Just as importantly, this chapter was _bloody hard to write._ I've said that about a chapter or two before, but _wow_ this one was tough. I stopped counting how many times I deleted the entire chapter and started over from scratch once I did it 7 times... I did it several more after that, too.

Anyways, chapters should be more regular after this, although I won't be doing _weekly_ uploads like I was in the summer (sometimes) anymore since, you know, college and stuff. I'm also taking my time a bit more, since I really want to up the quality standards for the story.

Speaking of quality, I'm going to be going back and updating the earlier chapters, since I'm not really all that happy with them... no major content changes, just making them a bit better so they're a more accurate measure of my writing ability.

If you have any suggestions, remarks or just want to leave a little " _hello!"_ leave a review and tell me what's up! I'll probably respond to a few reviews in the next chapter, so ask any questions now!

As always, thanks for reading

-D.A Haven

 **Chapter 7**

 _"Well, did you find anything?"_

 _The tattoo on his wrist twisted, sending a shudder up the boy's arm._

 _"...No, nothing at all."_

The man's uncannily observant eyes darted down towards Potter's wrist, catching the almost imperceptible movement. The notebook was concealed under the heavy cloak and sleeve, so there was _no way_ he could have _seen..._

Yet the moment the man's eyes landed on his forearm, Potter felt a rush of _terror._

Raw, ancient and primal, a fear born of self-preservation... of fight or flight.

 ** _Run. Predator. Danger._**

 ** _RUN!_**

The notebook _writhed_ like a snake, wrapping itself completely around the bone of his wrist and nearly making him sick as it lashed out underneath his skin, striking nerves and tendons with abandon. His already pale skin turned ghostly, and his arm's began shaking, even as his legs itched to carry him away from the danger.

 ** _Walls. Trapped. Danger._**

 ** _Trapped. TRAPPED._**

The man watched in slight confusion, a single eyebrow raised at Potter's strange behaviour.

Potter took a single step backwards, the notebook urging him **_away._**

And it was then that the entire Keep _shook._

An almighty **bang** rocked the stone structure, catching them both off guard. Powdered stone fell from the ceiling, raining down on their heads while larger pebbles landed all around them. The floor vibrated like it would in an earthquake, and the _sound_ echoing down through the long stone hallways was magnified so loudly that Potter's ears began ringing. He felt a brief flash of pain on his backside as he fell to the ground, and it seemed to clear his senses of whatever strange _panic_ had taken over him a moment before. It left him in a rush, like a cold ocean tide receding... back into the notebook on his wrist.

The man cursed, a long drawn out hiss under his breath filled to the brim with rage.

" _What's happening?"_ Potter shouted, barely able to hear himself over the rumbling of the Keep.

"We were too late," the man said coldly, staring back towards the staircase that led to the upper levels.

Potter had just opened his mouth to question again, when flashes of memory came back all at once. The house in Scotland, with the hidden attic. The rune on the floor, the letter and finally, the words his father had spoken, back in the muggle hotel in London.

 _We have until midnight when they get there, we **have** to be there first._

When _they_ get there.

 _Death Eaters._

A second tremor shook the foundations of the mountain itself, larger rocks and even boulders falling from the ceilings and walls. A stone clipped Potter on the shoulder and he flinched away in pain, feeling a light trickle of warm blood flowing down onto his bicep. The stone wasn't large, so at worst it was a small cut and a bruise, but it was enough to hammer into his mind just how real the current situation was.

They were locked underground, with a group of Death Eaters in between them and the only exit. He had no wand, and even if he _had_ one, the few spells he had learned from the man would be worthless against even an average adult wizard, let alone followers of the Dark Lord.

It was then that the notebook decided to _twitch_ again, and the sudden, unexpected squirming sensation seemed to drain the blood from his face as he struggled again not to throw up.

 _Today really, really sucks._

Potter chuckled lowly, as much a whimper as it was a true laugh. The sheer _absurdity_ of such a mundane statement in the life-threatening situation he found himself in was oddly amusing, in a manic sort of way.

The black haired man seemed to think so too, staring at his younger companion as if he were insane.

A third, final tremor rocked the floor, followed by an echoing crash, the sound of stone crumbling and collapsing into itself. The sound saturated the hallway, forlorn, ghostly and powerful after echoing through so many long, empty hallways and staircases.

The man's eyes narrowed, as his grip tightened on his wand.

" _They're in."_

Then, the man turned and walked out of the small, stone bedroom into the massive hallway.

A single thought wormed its way into his head.

 _He isn't going to... no, he **wouldn't...**_

Would the man _really_ just walk out to meet them? No, he _couldn't_ do that.

Potter scrambled to his feet, breathing heavily and wincing at the various aches and pains around his body. But before he could even make it to the doorway, a tiny flick of the man's wand let loose a rush of air that knocked him back onto the ground. His palms scraped on the stone floor.

The man paused, turning to glare over his shoulder. His eyes had gone cold, hardened in a way that sent a shiver down the boy's spine.

"Close the door, Potter. Don't open it until I come back, _understand_?"

"But-"

" _I asked you if_ _you understood, boy."_

Potter stared back defiantly, even from his place on the ground. He shakily stood once more, eyes never leaving the man's.

"Boy-"

"I'm not letting you go alone!" Potter shouted, his voice shaky and uneven, laced with emotion.

The man visibly stiffened, recoiling slightly in surprise, although his face remained unreadable.

 _"I c- I can't let you go alone."_

The man was _far_ from perfect. He was surly, brooding, distant and cold... but he was still the closest thing to family that Potter had.

For the briefest of moments, something sad could be seen in the man's eyes. Then it was gone, impassive once again.

"And I'm afraid you'll have to, boy... _Imperio."_

Everything went cloudy, like he was viewing the world from inside a thick fog. A compulsion washed over him, pushing back all semblances of original thought or free will, battering them down until only _it_ remained.

Potter watched in silent horror, unable to do a thing as he spoke the hissing words which caused the great stone doors to begin sliding closed. He kicked and bucked inside his own mind, wrestling with the overwhelming spell and struggling to shake it's grip. He managed one final glance outside, as the doors finally clicked shut, and caught a glimpse of the man's cloak, billowing gently before he disappeared from view, leaving Potter staring at nothing more than the nearly black insides of the room.

Xx~xX

The man suppressed the urge to sigh, fighting back any emotions that may distract him from what was coming.

 _Of course the boy chose now to be getting sentimental. And right after he disappears for hours, as well..._

While the boy being separated from him was something he was used to, _not knowing where he was_ wasn't. It had been a strange sensation, turning around to find him simply _not there._ The kid almost never left his side, given the chance, so his sudden vanishing was more than just alarming. When a tracking spell had revealed that the boy had wandered into one of the side rooms, _a room only capable of being opened by a parselmouth,_ he had felt such...

He tightened his grip on his wand, forcing the thoughts from his head.

 _At least that occlumency training can still be useful sometimes._

The man turned to observe the hallway he was in, although it was closer to a cavern than hall. Easily fifty meters long and about half as wide, with the large spiraling staircase leading to the upper levels set into one wall and a giant, heavily locked and enchanted metal gate on the other far wall, flanked with braziers which glowed with green fire. The other two walls were lined with the tiny doors that the boy had gotten himself into, the same one he was now locked in. At least the _Imperius_ was set to fade away over the course of an hour...

From the staircase, he heard the first echoes of voices, spiraling down to reach him. He recognized them, _each_ of them in a heartbeat. The harsh, cruel tones of the Carrow twins, and the more intelligent, vicious voice of Avery. They were twisted and distorted after travelling such a long distance, but he knew the sounds _very_ well.

He gave one last look around the room, vainly searching for any exit he might have missed, but finding nothing. He could possibly have hid in one of the side rooms with the boy, but with how the Carrows were throwing around explosive curses, they would be just as likely to collapse the Keep on top of them by accident as they would to kill him out in the open.

 _It seems our little reunion is inevitable._ Fine. _Let them come._

The man spun on his heel and walked to a place in front of the giant gate, directly in between the two braziers of green flames. He threw the hood of his cloak up over his face, and after a moment of consideration, cast a charm which made his eyes glow a bright red, in a way vaguely recognizable as how the Dark Lord looked when he was angry.

He smiled slightly, a wry, lopsided grin that was closer to cruel than humorous. The Death Eaters weren't expecting there to be anyone in the Keep with them... with any luck, his rather _frightening_ appearance would buy him precious seconds.

The voices were louder now, more distinct. Occasionally, there would be another slight rumble, as one of those _idiot_ twins lobbed another _bombarda_ or whatever other spell they might have learned into a random door or wall. By the time the echoing explosion faded, he could already hear Avery yelling angrily at the twins, and the disturbing laughter they responded with. Of course Avery would be in charge of this little operation, since the twins likely only had a brain cell or two between them, but that didn't mean Avery could actually _control_ the animals.

Old memories came rushing back, of raids and battles under black cloak and behind cold, metal masks. Once, he had fought alongside the three Death Eaters that now were likely to attempt to kill him on the spot. They didn't need to recognize him to want him dead... the very fact that he was _here_ would be enough for them to 'get him out of the way'. The Carrows' would probably enjoy it, too.

Finally, the voices and steps reached the very top of the stairs, echoing down in a way that was actually comprehensible.

"What did Wilkes even _expect_ us to find in this miserable old place?" _The female Carrow twin._

" _I can assure you,_ I know no more than I did when you asked the same question _four minutes ago,"_ Avery's sarcastic snarl was easy to identify.

"Then why the _bloody hell_ did we come all this way out here if we don't even know _what_ that ruddy bastard wants us to find?" The male twin, this time... _Amycus,_ the man remembered with some difficulty. He had, luckily, never gotten to know the twins particularly well.

"We'll find it. We just need to follow the trail of the magic... whatever artifact Wilkes is after _must_ be the source."

"Are we sure it's worth it, Avery? Is this damn trade worth what we're getting out of it?"

The man raised an eyebrow, listening more intently.

 _Trade? So they and Wilkes aren't really working together, just making a deal?_

"Yes, Amycus. Whatever we find in this place, even if it's the bloody fountain of youth, it will be worth it. _Our Lord will return."_

 _What?_

Then, the feet of the Death Eaters came into view, as they reached the hallway. Amycus spotted him first, his eyes widening comically in surprise. He stopped in his tracks, only for his sister to bump into him from behind and the two of them to go stumbling down the rest of the stairs, barely staying upright. Alecto stared in surprise as well, and made to draw her wand...

But the man was faster. His wrist flicked up, a bright purple curse firing from his wand in a brilliant flash. Alecto shoved her brother to the side, diving to the ground to dodge the curse, which landed on the wall and instantly cracked the heavy stones.

Amycus recovered faster.

" _Expulso!"_

The man didn't move, a wordless _protego_ blocking the explosive curse. Through the bright flash of smoke, he caught a glimpse of other, equally deadly spells being slung his way, and he stepped aside, letting the _protego_ drop and the curses collide with the door behind him.

Then Avery reached the hallway, yelling out to his companions, and the duel began in earnest.

" _Lacero!"_

 _"Confringo!"_

 _"Expulso!"_

The three curses came towards the man at blinding speed, each followed by a quick succession of other curses and hexes. The man cursed, sweeping his arm in a wide arc and putting everything he had into a single _protego_.

The barrier shuddered, but held, cracked and broken as it was.

The man darted out to the side as he dropped the shield, firing a string of minor hexes just meant to buy time.

The twins ducked and dodged, while Avery cast his own shield and began striding forwards calmly.

 _Cocky bastard..._

" _Avada Kedavra!"_

Avery's eyes went wide as he dropped the shield, diving to the ground underneath the man's killing curse.

Before any of the three had recovered, the man raised his wand high above his head, pointed at the ceiling between the combatants.

" _Fiendfyre!"_

With a horrific shriek, the hellfire burst forth from his wand, taking the shape of a wyvern. From the tips of it's wings and the corners of it's mouth dripped a liquid fire, which pooled on the ground and melted the stone instantly. The three Death Eaters stared up at the massive beast in terror, as it turned it's gaze to meet them.

The _fiendfyre_ lunged, and the Death Eaters scrambled to the sides.

" _Petrificus Totalus,"_ the man shouted, and his spell caught the male twin on the hip, sending him tumbling.

" _Amycus!"_ Alecto shrieked, helpless.

The _fiendfyre_ wyvern drew long, molten scratches on the stone floor as it clawed it's way towards the immobilized twin, who didn't even see it coming. The dragon-like creature snapped it's jaws shut over his head, and with a massive, blinding flare, _shook_ like a dog, tearing, scorching and then incinerating the male Carrow twin.

Avery didn't so much as look back as his companion died behind him.

" _Reducto! Lacero!"_

The man swatted the two spells aside, and cast his own cutting curses in return. They were easily blocked, but gave the man a chance to recover after casting the _fiendfyre._

" _Bastard, I'll kill you!"_ Alecto screamed, darting forwards and casting curse after curse.

He dodged the first, blocking another sent by Avery and redirecting the _fiendfyre_ towards the other Carrow twin.

Alecto managed to duck under the flaming wyvern's talons, but screamed in pain as the fire cooked her skin just from passing by.

 _Damn, if I just could make the fire a little larger... no, the room is too small. It would be suicide._

Instead, he cast an entrails spilling curse in her direction, before transfiguring a wall out of the stone floor to block a series of curses cast by Avery. Another twist of his wand and the stone bricks broke into rubble, and he _banished_ them, sending a shotgun-like blast of stones towards the approaching Carrow.

She had enough time to _begin_ a _protego_ , before the stones smashed into her and shattered her legs and arms. Another stone collided with her head, which snapped backwards violently as she dropped to the ground, unmoving.

Avery stood behind his shield, sparing only a disdainful glare at the bodies of his companions before turning back to face the man.

"So," Avery began, " _who_ exactly are you?"

The sudden lull in the fight was unexpected. The room became eerily quiet, as the man recalled his _fiendfyre,_ letting it dissipate into the air.

He cast a quick charm to alter his voice.

" _What does Wilkes have."_ It wasn't a question. It was a demand.

Avery sneered.

" _Expulso"_

And the silence was broken.

The two men began circling each other, casting combinations of every curse and hex they knew, dodging and blocking and parrying, inches from death over and over again. Avery was fast, his wand movements short and precise, letting him follow one spell with another almost immediately, while the man was slower but powered his curses so much that each time Avery was forced to block instead of dodge, it rocked his entire body with the percussion. The floor shook again with the power of explosive curses, and stones blackened under the countless other spells.

Neither man wasted time shouting incantations. Wordless spells, flashes of light in so many different colours it was hard to keep track of, flew around the room.

Avery, focused in on his target too heavily to watch his footing, stumbled slightly on a fallen stone. His eyes bulged as he was caught off guard, exposed.

" _Diffindo_ _!"_ The man yelled triumphantly.

Avery burst into a pillar of black smoke, dashing forwards out of the way of the cutting charm and into the air at dizzying speed.

The man cursed, before a wry smile crossed his face.

 _If that's how you want to play, Avery..._

A cloud of black smoke billowed around him, and his body became one with it, lifting him off his feet and dashing through the air after his foe.

They circled again, but this time so fast the room blurred around them, and all they could see was each other. The man's face was completely hidden underneath his cloak, and his eyes still glared out a vibrant red. Avery's mouth was a thin, determined line, his eyes filled with anger, and the rush of adrenaline that comes with any duel.

When the spells started again, they were even more violent than before.

More power, faster casting and even darker curses. Neither man was holding anything back now, and the room shook around them. The man at least kept his more destructive curses away from the room that the boy was still hiding in.

They both grew in frustration, neither able to land a curse on the other. Even the _unforgivables_ were being dodged and countered with another violent string of curses.

" _Confringo!"_ Avery shouted, pouring more power into the curse through the incantation.

The man moved to dodge, only to curse as he realised the spell wasn't aimed at him but the roof in front of him. The roof finally gave out, and a section of boulders dropped right into the man's path. He swerved to the side, but his momentum was too much, and one of the stones dropped directly onto his left shoulder, knocking him out of the air.

He crash landed on the ground, tumbling over rough stones and boulders. His shoulder popped out of it's socket, and every part of his body took hits hard enough to bruise. When he came to a stop, he had just enough sense to roll himself to the side once more, barely dodging a killing curse.

Without looking, he pointed his wand in Avery's general direction and overpowered a _lumos,_ the bright flash of white-blue light buying him a few seconds to cast a quick charm to set his shoulder back in place with a sickening _pop._

Avery recovered at the same time, staring with hateful eyes back at the man. Both of them were now back on the ground, and squared off against each other once more.

" _Who the hell are you, and where did you learn that spell?"_ Avery spat.

He smirked, knowing full well that only Death Eaters had ever learned that spell for flying. When he took to the air after Avery, he may as well have rolled up his sleeve and shown off his Dark Mark as well.

The man's only response was another series of curses.

They were both tiring. The room had collapsed in places, earth and stone laying in piles around the room, which the two men used as cover. Blasting curses turned rocks into powder, cutting charms severed boulders in half and withering curses turned the earth black. Any curse that couldn't be dodged was swatted aside or blocked, and any unforgivable that couldn't be blocked was dodged.

 _I need something else. Something he doesn't expect._

The rock the man was using as cover exploded, and he dove out of the way of the rubble. From behind his new cover, he poked his wand up over the lip and fired three quick blasting hexes at roughly where he thought Avery was.

 _Something he thinks he can dodge, but can't._

An overpowered cutting charm sliced cleanly through the stone right beside him, nearly taking off his ear.

 _Or something he thinks he can block, but can't._

He paused, heedless of the fight and the exploding stones around him.

 _Maybe? No, no... but could it?_

It was a curse he hadn't used or even _thought_ about since his days in Hogwarts... but _maybe._

It couldn't be blocked by a normal _protego_ , not that it was unblockable, but if Avery didn't know what it was...

 _It's worth a shot. I'm almost out of energy to keep this going anyways._

He rose from behind his cover, standing in full view. Avery was somewhere out there, hidden behind a stone. The man's heart started racing, knowing full well just how _reckless_ this move was. It was just as likely to get him killed as it was to win him the fight. He would have just a _second_ to aim and cast the curse, all while Avery was in the middle of his _own_ curses.

He stepped forwards, on top of his pile of rubble, glowing red eyes wide and searching for the slightest flicker of movement...

 _There he is._

Time seemed to slow down, as Avery stood from behind his cover, and raised his wand.

The man raised his as well, wrist already guiding it through the slashing motion.

" _Confrin-"_

 _"Sectumsempra!"_

The man was faster.

The white flash of light, an invisible, magic sword, slashed through the air and towards the Death Eater. Avery raised his hand and wordlessly, wandlessly cast his _protego,_ confident that it would block the spell...

Only for it to pass through like a ghost, slashing into Avery's shoulder and drawing a bright red line of red. The spell ricocheted, as it was designed to do, slashing across Avery's body again and again, tearing his cloak and body alike to shreds. The Death Eater fell, his legs giving out as his tendons and muscles were severed, collapsing into a crumpled heap in a steadily growing pool of his own blood. The man exhaled, the adrenaline fading somewhat, as the duel ended. He made his way to the fallen Death Eater, who still lay twitching on the ground, alive but not for much longer.

Avery stared back up with raw hatred in his eyes, and as the man came to stand next to his fallen form, Avery spat blood onto his shoes.

" _When the Dark Lord returns, he'll-"_ Avery's words were cut off as the man cast a quick silencing charm on him.

"And _how exactly_ do you think that _he_ will be coming back?" He released the silencing charm.

Avery choked, coughing up more blood.

"The Dark Lord is _immortal._ He was _never_ dead, just _gone._ But he will return, and when he does, he'll come for those who've _betrayed him!"_

Avery stiffled a scream, as the man stepped on his left wrist, just over the Dark Mark, grinding the heel of his boot in deep.

"Wilkes wanted something from you... as part of a _deal._ What he wanted was here, in this Keep, but I'm more interested in what _you_ were getting from _him._ "

Avery spat more blood on his boots, which he then ground in even deeper, causing the man on the ground to squirm in pain.

Seeing that Avery wasn't going to tell him anything more, he decided he needed to worm the information out of him another way.

" _Legilimens."_

There was the usual rush of entering someone's head, and the dizzying catalog of images and flickers of memory, but then a wall came crashing down, forcing him out before he had even oriented himself.

 _Of course Avery was a bloody Occlumens, why wouldn't he be._

As the man was pulling himself back into his own head, something suspicious caught his eye. Avery wasn't looking at him, but was clearly _focused_ on something... something _behind_ him.

He felt a flash of panic, realising his mistake. He spun around, raising his wand, but nowhere near fast enough.

Alecto wasn't dead, like he had foolishly assumed. She had crawled her way with broken limbs until she was directly behind him, and now had her wand raised and a triumphant, fiendish grin on her face.

" _Avada Kedavra,"_ the pure _joy_ in her voice was sickening.

The disgusting green light flashed, and he knew there was no time to dodge. He was off balance, still not even turned around. The horrific feeling, the sense of _knowing_ that you were going to die settled in his stomach.

" _NO!"_

Another voice, much younger and filled with desperation rang throughout the room. The man watched in amazement as a pillar of stone rose in front of him, so quickly that it smashed into the ceiling and went straight _through_ it.

The killing curse collided with the pillar, and dissipated, nothing more than a black scorch on the stones.

Years of instinct came into play, and given his chance, the man reacted instantly. Another _banishing_ charm to the stones, almost identical to what he had done to Alecto before, only this time he didn't break to wall into pieces first. The entire pillar broke off and collapsed as a single, massive block, tipping over and landing directly on top of the female Death Eater. She disappeared underneath, only a slow seep of red trailing out from the rubble to mark that she was there.

The man turned, his heart pounding in his chest, to find his 'savior', whose gaze he met with a mixture of emotions far too complex for him to decipher.

Potter stared back, those unsettling green eyes wide in fear and tinged with tears. In both hands, held clumsily in front of him, he held the wand of Amycus Carrow, or at least the burnt remains of it.

" _How...?"_

 _It shouldn't be possible. The Imperius shouldn't have worn off so quickly..._

Not just that, but how had an _eight year old_ transfigured a pillar of that size, so quickly? And with a wand that wasn't his, and was nearly broken, as well?

" _Bloody fucking hell!"_ Avery screamed, and somehow, despite the severity of his wounds, managed to grab his wand from the ground and aim it at the man.

Avery's explosive curse was barely a firecracker, his body too exhausted from the length of their duel to cast a damaging spell. It collided with the man's face, a great puff of smoke and wind which did more to shock the man than hurt him. However, the direct hit was enough to knock down his hood, and cancel the charm on his eyes which made them glow red.

Avery's eyes nearly popped out of his head.

" _You?"_ He whispered, "you're supposed to be _dead."_

The man glared back, stepping closer and kicking Avery's wand from his hand.

" _Clearly you are mistaken, Avery."_ The man's voice was like ice.

Potter came closer, moving strangely silently over the rubble to take his place by the man's side. He still clutched the burnt wand in his hands, although the tip had now crumbled away into ash.

Avery stared in rage at the young boy, and the wand held shakily in his hands.

"You never struck me as the type to have _kids."_

The man chose not to answer.

"Wilkes has one of his horcruxes, doesn't he?" The man accused.

Avery paled, then after a moment, sneered.

" _Wouldn't you like to know?"_

"How did he get it? The Dark Lord would never have trusted _him_ with one."

"And you would know _so much_ about who the Dark Lord _trusts,_ wouldn't you?" Avery snarled, his lips curling up like a dog when it growls.

The man stomped into his stomach, grinding the heel of his boot into his kidney. Potter watched from the side, morbidly curious and disgusted at the same time.

"Where is Wilkes?"

" _Fuck you!"_

" _Legilimens!"_

The man once again pushed his way into Avery's head, but this time kept enough of his mind in his body to continue grinding his boot into vital areas of the Death Eater's gut. The pain was _just_ enough of a distraction that the man was able to worm his way inside Avery's head, and find the memories he needed.

He took his heel off Avery's stomach, and left his mind more roughly than he normally would, causing Avery to develop a splitting headache instantly.

"He's hiding in _Germany?"_

Avery growled.

"So we go to Germany now?" The boy's voice was tiny in the silence of the giant room.

Both men turned to look at him, having already forgotten he was there.

"Yes. To Germany," the man said. "But first... we have a _loose end_ to clean up."

Avery sneered, glaring up with hateful eyes.

"He'll find you, you know. _He'll come back,"_ Avery threatened, as the man pointed his wand in between the Death Eater's eyes.

"Perhaps... but you won't live to see it."

Avery laughed outright, a harsh, barking sound that echoed eerily around the room. Potter knew it was a sound that would haunt his nightmares.

" _I'll be waiting for you in hell, Regulus."_

 _"Avada Kedavra."_


	8. Manipulation

A/N:

 ** _I said I'd respond to some qurstions and reviews, but to prevent this AN from being half the chapter I'll just do one this week._**

 _ygrekks: It's a good story. Regulus fits in his role perfectly (I honestly thought that it was Snape). I just hope you have a damn good reason for Regulus to steal an infant (beacouse it's an event that began this story) so I would not like to see some stupid reason like "This baby is going to help me destroy the dark lord". Also isn't it weird that Lily didn't know that she's going to have twins?_

 **I wanted to respond to this one in particular, since it asks a few important questions I should answer. In this story, Lily and James went into hiding under fidelius before Lily realised she was pregnant, and couldn't really leave or receive a lot of visitors. This is important, since she doesn't have a midwife around or any trained medical professionals. And even though Lily was always good with charms, what are the odds that she knows the _exact_ charm to determine whether she will have a single baby or twins? Pretty slim. It's not like she has access to an ultrasound in their house, either. This is also why they risked going to Mungo's when she went into labour in the first place. It was going to be her first child (or children) and you _always_ want to be around someone who know's what they're doing for that kind of thing. Not to mention Mungo's would have been considered safe anyways, since as a general rule of thumb it's a bad idea to attack _hospitals._**

 **As for why Regulus 'kidnapped' Potter, you've asked the wrong question my friend. In an open battle, which is also the final confrontation of the war, why _wouldn't_ a man take a newborn baby and carry it to safety? The real question is: _Why didn't Regulus give him back?_**

 ** _NOW ON TO_** ** _THE CHAPTER!_**

 ** _Xx~xX_**

The notebook wouldn't let him sleep.

Every few minutes it would shift again, forcing him awake and out of whatever fitful rest he had managed to slip into. Each time, he checked the clock with growing frustration, watching the minutes and hours tick away. His basilisk green eyes grew red around the edges with exhaustion and it was nearly impossible to move his arms, which felt like they were wrapped in lead. He would toss and turn, slowly and lethargically, never able to find a comfortable spot in the too-soft hotel room bed.

He groaned and squeezed his eyes shut as the first rays of sunlight broke the horizon, far too early in the day for his liking. A quick glance at the clock revealed an _ungodly_ hour and he resigned himself to simply not sleeping tonight. He rolled over, pulling the thick blanket up and over his head until he was encased in it like a cocoon. It was far too thick of a blanket for sunlight to stream through, yet he could still see, well enough to count the faint little hairs on his arms.

The tattoo was a strange colour, in this absence of natural light. Black in the center of each line, but tinged with the same green as his eyes around the edges. It looked like the black lines were solid, something tangible and physical, while the green was simply a _light,_ shining on it from behind... somewhere inside his wrist. Yet something about it seemed not _right,_ as if the whole thing were a colour just out of the normally visible spectrum. Even just _looking_ at it made his stomach churn, remembering the sickening feeling of it as it first entered his wrist.

 _Had it really only been a few hours ago?_

It seemed hard to believe. What had started as practically a _normal_ outing for Potter and Regulus had spiraled into so much _more._ Breaking into ruins looking for dark artifacts wasn't something all that uncommon for the two, although the Keep had been by _far_ the most impressive ruin either had ever seen. But from the very beginning, it had been different. The magic that permeated the air, the parselmouth locked doors, the _underground castle..._ it was like something out of a terrifying children's tale. _And then there was the basilisk..._ not to mention the horcrux of a supposedly _dead_ dark wizard.

A dark wizard who was also his _ancestor._

As if reacting to the thought of its creator, the notebook wriggled almost contentedly in his wrist. A subtle _satisfaction_ washed over him, spreading from the notebook up into his chest and out through his veins, like an injection.

He stared down at it, a mixture of confusion and curiosity on his face.

Just _what_ _was this thing?_

Herpo had claimed it was a notebook, one filled with his entire life's works... _the most valuable grimoire ever created,_ or something like that at least. But it was clearly much more than just a _book,_ the very fact that it was now a tattoo on his wrist was proof of that.

How was it able to move? And why, or _how_ could he sometimes _feel_ things coming from his wrist?

Was the notebook _alive?_

 _Twitch._

He glared at it again, and his fingers stopped their own twitching a second later.

Perhaps not _alive,_ but possibly _aware_ , at least in some twisted, unnatural imitation of life.

He closed his eyes and let himself rest a moment, savouring the blissful stillness of his wrist. With how exhausted he was, he knew there wouldn't be any use questioning things tonight... he could barely _see_ straight at times, let alone think clearly.

Lazily throwing the heavy blanket off to the side, he let the sudden rush of cold air rouse him. When his feet hit the icy hardwood floors, it helped the slightest bit more, but mostly it just made him miss the warmth of the bed immediately. Wherever this hotel was, it was still pretty far north in Europe... it was _cold_ this early in the morning. Still, he shambled his way to the loo, doing his best to avoid looking at the closed door to Regulus' room.

His reflection was a sorry sight, even in the near-darkness of the windowless space. Black hair sticking out every which way, long enough to tickle the back of his neck but not reach his shoulders, creating a dark frame around pale skin still covered in bits of dust and grime. His eyes were sunken, bloodshot and lined by heavy bags and hooded eyelids. The mottled patch of scar tissue on his right cheek, a remnant from the day he was born, was outlined in soot making it appear darker than normal.

He and Regulus hadn't had the energy to clean up after the events of the previous night. It was only now though that he realised just how badly he _needed_ it.

 _He'll find you, you know. He'll come back._

He shivered, Avery's words still so clear in his mind he could hear the pained wheeze of the dying man's breaths. When he closed his eyes, he still saw the wounds, sword slashes across skin and muscle, still see the pool of blood, the charred and mangled twins, still _smell the_ -

 _Twitch._

For the first time, he was grateful for how distracting the notebook could be. He quickly splashed cold water over his face and shook his head, sending drops of water flying around the bathroom.

"Couldn't sleep?"

Potter jolted in surprise at Regulus' dry tone, suddenly appearing behind him. When he spun around, Regulus was standing in the doorway, looking every bit as worn down as Potter felt.

A frown crossed the man's rugged features, as he flicked on the light and saw his companion's appearance.

"Come here, boy," Regulus sighed.

He obliged, still rubbing the sleep and drops of water from the corners of his eyes. Regulus drew his wand, flicked his wrist in a winding, circular motion, and what felt like a gust of warm air flew from it. The second it touched Potter's skin, the dirt, the grime and the ash dissipated into the air, scrubbing his body and clothes clean. It was a comforting feeling, like sitting in front of a fire on a cold winter's day, and he smiled slightly in relief. The breeze, however, fluttered his sleeves, and the rough insides scratched against a tender spot on his shoulder...

He flinched, and instantly knew that Regulus had seen. The man raised an eyebrow, frowning slightly.

"Anything you would like to tell me?" His voice was rough, but not aggressive.

 _So much. There's so, so much..._

 ** _Twitch._**

"No, I'm okay."

Regulus rolled his eyes, something which looked unfamiliar on the normally stoic man.

"Boy, if you're going to lie to me, at _least_ think about your answers more carefully. I didn't _ask_ you if you were _alright._ "

Potter stiffened in surprise?

 _He didn't know, did he? No, he couldn't, he **couldn't, no one could know, no one-**_

"Show me your shoulder, Potter."

He felt his heart rate and breathing slow, which surprised him as he hadn't noticed them speed up in the first place. When...?

 _Twitch._

He pulled his shirt to the side, revealing his right shoulder, which was coated in dried blood, a cut several inches long but not especially deep at the center. He stared at it in something close to surprise... it hurt so little now, he had forgotten about the cut entirely. He remembered now, the falling stone back in the Keep, the hot rush of blood in the ice cold air...

Lost in thought he didn't notice Regulus move until the man was already grabbing his arm, gently so as not to hurt the cut further. He peered at it closely, and the Notebook fluttered in something like fear or discomfort, before relaxing as Regulus leaned back against the door frame.

"You should have told me last night... you've waited so long it won't be easy to heal anymore."

He nodded his head, looking every bit like the scolded child he was.

"I've never been the most proficient with healing spells... but It'll have to do."

Potter watched the intricate wand movements closely, memorizing, before feeling his shoulder stitch itself back together, only a faintly uncomfortable itching feeling left to remind him of the cut.

"Now, if you wouldn't mind... there are still several hours of _sleep_ calling me, and I would appreciate not being interrupted by noisy children at _four thirty in the morning."_

Xx~xX

Regulus had gone back to bed, disappearing behind a now locked and quite probably sound-proofed door. Potter had _tried_ to sleep again, and even managed to, for a short while... the Notebook was settling down for longer periods thankfully.

He sat on a balcony now, dressed in muggle jeans and a jumper, but wrapped in the thick blanket from his bed as well. In the crisp morning air his breath made little puffs of white, drifting out lazily into the world. A book Regulus had given him several months ago sat forgotten on the table, abandoned after only a minute or two of distracted study.

He watched the city slowly coming alive, trying to distract himself. But try as he might, nothing could distract him from the icy, itching burn of the Notebook in his wrist. His own curiosity was only growing as well, constantly forcing his thoughts to wander back to it and the mysteries it presented.

 _Herpo must have given it to me for a reason._

 _But can I trust him?_

The answer was a resounding _no._

 _Twitch._

Then again, hadn't Herpo given it to him to help him _stop Voldemort?_ The 'Line Thief'... that was what Herpo had called him, at least. He would have to ask Regulus in the morning what exactly that meant.

The first bird song chirped though the air, high and clear. He closed his eyes, letting his mind focus on something other than the Notebook, or Herpo, or Regulus, and ever so slowly, he closed his eyes, and drifted off to his first real sleep of the night.

Xx~xX

 _He knew at once that he was dreaming. How he knew, he couldn't be sure... but there was an underlying knowing, this certainty that he was in a dream and not the waking world. It was the same feeling one had when dreaming of something absurd... where, without explaining how or why, impossible things seemed normal in a way that you just accepted without thought._

 _He was in Paris. How he knew that, he couldn't tell... something about the architecture of the buildings, maybe? Yet it wasn't Paris in the way he had seen it when he was younger, it was... impossible. The walls, the sky, the ground, everything except him was faded into a stark white, with a haze (or was it a fog?) spreading out over it, obscuring his view and turning it into a sheet of white._

 _Sheet of white... no, that was more like it. Like a sketch, just vague, faint lines scratched onto a sheet of white paper. An unfinished drawing._

 _There was no sound, even when he took steps forward down the center of the road he found himself on. The entire world was muted, just like someone had hit a button and turned off the sound._

 _The streets were empty, except for him. It was a surreal sensation, to be standing in the middle of what should have been a busy, downtown street, where cars would normally be driving by. Shouldn't someone stop him? Yell at him to get off the road?_

 _When he finally saw his skin, he nearly jolted in surprise. He was pale, always had been, but nothing like what he saw now. His skin was ashen white, a sickly tint of almost grey underlying his normal complexion. It was far beyond a simple palid tone... there was something wrong with it. Something unnatural._

 _The tattoo wasn't on his wrist anymore. The black lines and green tint he was slowly growing familiar with were gone, nothing left on his skin to signify it had ever been there. He rubbed his wrist, conflicting emotions rustling through his mind. On one hand, he was glad to be free of it, even if it was only a dream. In all honesty, he_ wished _the entire ordeal in the Keep was a dream. He wished that he could simply wake up back in London, or Scotland, or Ireland or any of the other places him and Regulus stayed in regularly... but that underlying certainty crushed that hope, that wish instantly. He knew that this was the dream, not what had happened before. But then on the other hand, he felt that something was... missing. He wasn't warm in this place, far from it. He shivered in the cold, a wet, miserable cold which seeped into his bones, although his breath made no clouds in the air. But there was a different kind of cold, a comforting kind, which was simply... gone._

 _He knew what that cold was. That comforting feeling that, somewhere deep inside him, he reached out for in a way that he didn't understand. But still, he denied it, pushing the thoughts, the desires, into the back of his mind._

 _He walked, without direction. Following the road, for the most part, although at times he wandered away from it, randomly straying down narrow alleyways and over bridges and walkways. He could feel something, just like in the Keep, a sort of tug, drawing him... somewhere._

 _Time didn't move normally in this place. Seconds turned into hours, minutes turned into seconds and years turned into days. He could spend what felt like days crossing a single bridge, or pass through miles of city streets in the blink of an eye._

 _Was time distorted, or were his memories? He felt in a daze... it was hard to focus on anything. The fog that permeated the air was just as thick inside his head, it seemed._

 _He came to a clearing. In Paris, it might have been a park, or a fountain, or a statue, but here in this pale imitation, it was simply... emptiness. The ground trailed away, not dropping off into a cliff or anything so dramatic as that, but like the artist who had drawn the place simply lifted the pencil, ending the lines that created the world. It wasn't open space. It wasn't air. It wasn't even a vacuum, the absence of any matter... it was simply nothing._

 _The end._

 _And on the other side, was a light._

 _Golden. Warm, inviting... alluring like nothing else he had ever seen in his life. He could hear something, for the first time since coming to this place. A faint voice, calling him over, calling him home. He had never heard the voice before, even as faint as it was he could tell that much, but even so it washed over him, pushing back the cold in his bones, pushing back the cold in the air. He let out a whimper, a tiny, pathetic noise, as his knees went weak and his limbs began to shake. He felt as if every ache and pain had been taken away. It was as if he had always been in pain, so constantly and unrelentingly that he had never even noticed before, had just accepted it as what 'normal' felt like... but in the sudden absence of that pain, now realised how badly he had been hurting._

 _The voice was almost familiar now. Had he heard it before? Did he know him? For now he was sure that the voice was a man's... but who?_

 ** _Don't._**

 _He didn't want to turn around, to turn away from that golden light on the other side of the end of the world. But the sudden... it wasn't a voice, really, but an idea, a thought, coming from behind him... whatever it was, it was enough to make him turn._

 _He wasn't surprised at all to see the Notebook._

 _It lay on the ground, the ancient black leather cover, battered and cracked, facing up and in plain view. It glowed, not unlike the light on the other side... although the Notebook's light was the same green as his eyes. The same green he had seen in the eyes of the basilisk, and which glowed from underneath his tattoo._

 ** _Don't go._**

 _There was still no sound. Not a whisper of wind or voice, yet he could hear the Notebook. Not with sound but with some other sense, a feeling in his chest he couldn't describe._

 _"Don't go where?" His voice didn't echo, despite the open space of the clearing. Instead, it faded, snuffed out like a candle in the faint air of this unreal place._

 ** _Can't go._**

 _"What do you mean, I can't go?"_

 _The Notebook was silent. He walked to it, feeling the comforting chill of necromancy seeping from the Notebook settle back into his skin. The warmth from the golden light retreated, and his heart reached out for it like an infant to it's mother. But his body, his skin, his bones, his muscles and tendons... they rejoiced, the cold like a breath of fresh air to a drowning man._

 _He stooped low, picking up the rather small Notebook in his left hand. The leather would have been smooth on his skin, but for the large, deep cracks in it's surface. It felt comfortable, the perfect size to hold open with just one hand and flip through the pages with the other. Almost as if it had been made especially for him, although he knew that was impossible._

 _The cover was unremarkable. An ornate rune decorated the cover, imprinted in bronze. It depicted a tree, large, full branches spreading out into a full canopy, with fruits dangling in between its leaves... an apple tree, he realised after staring at it for a moment. At it's base, the trunk of the tree grew out of, and spilled over the edges of an urn, wrapping around the pot and hanging off the sides, dangling over nothingness._

 ** _Can't go._**

 _He wanted to, though. The golden light, although he could no longer feel it or see it, called to him. Pulled him._

 _"Why can't I go?" He asked, his voice more solid than it had been before._

 ** _Can't._**

 _He frowned down at the book. Why should he even listen to it, in the first place?_

 _But then, the Cold felt so nice... wasn't it better than the golden light, anyways?_

 _ **Open.**_

 _"Open? You want me to open you?"_

 _When the Notebook didn't respond, he took it as confirmation... and for the first time, gently took hold of the cover and flipped it open._

 _The inside was decorated around the trim with basilisks, twining and twisting around each other again and again to form an intricate border along the corners. Their open mouths revealed fangs and the raised crests on their heads stood as if in warning. The parchment was old and yellowed, harder than average parchment and much harder than simple paper, although not completely stiffened. The black ink inside was still dark, the scrawling lines clearly written by hand. Although it should have been written in ancient Greek, or some other language of the ancient world, he found that he could understand it perfectly, despite having never seen any of the symbols before in his life._

 ** _Blood._**

 _He wasn't sure what compelled him to comply. Perhaps it was simply because he knew it was a dream, perhaps because of the comforting feeling the Notebook gave him... but at the Notebook's command, he raised his thumb to his mouth and bit into the fleshy pad. Blood, thick and red trailed down his hand and then his wrist, drops of it tinting his lips. He raised his thumb over the Notebook, unsure of why he was doing so but compelled by the sense that it **was** the right thing to do. He squeezed his thumb, and let drops splatter down onto the open pages of the Notebook._

 _Somewhere behind him, unnoticed, the golden light retreated further away, barely visible in the distance._

 _The basilisks on the trim writhed, shaking themselves loose from the edges of the page. They grinned at him with malicious eyes, slithering their way across the page to where his blood had landed... and latching onto the droplets like leeches. He watched in fascination, fully knowing that he should have been disgusted or afraid instead, but only able to feel a terrible curiosity. The snakes feasted, his blood slowly disappearing into the pages, until it was gone completely._

 ** _Good._**

 _"Well, don't expect anymore unless you start giving me answers."_

 _He could feel the Notebook's hesitance. It wasn't just the sensations of word-feelings anymore... he could feel it passively now, understand it more clearly._

 _"What is this place?" He asked, his curiosity expanding again to focus on the entire world of this dream-like place._

 ** _Home._**

 _He had the feeling that the Notebook wasn't talking about its own home, but rather his. It didn't look much like home to him, though._

 _"But this place isn't real?"_

 _The Notebook stayed silent._

 _He sighed, and snapped the covers shut with a dull thud. He was surprised then, when the Notebook shimmered, and began fraying apart at the edges. He realised what was happening a second too late._

 _"Hey, wait!"_

 _The Notebook lifted into the air in something like a powder, and then shot towards his wrist like it was being sucked in. His skin opened up, pulling itself apart to let the Notebook inside. It wasn't as painful this time... or maybe he just wasn't capable of blacking out, since he was already asleep._

 _When it was done, the tattoo was on his wrist as if nothing had changed._

 _He stared at it in a new light. Just what was it? How and why could it... **speak** in the way it did? It was a burning question in his mind that he doubted he would find an answer to anytime soon._

 ** _Leave._**

 _"Oh, so you can still **speak** when you're in my wrist?"_

 _Again, it was silent. He let his arm go loose, dropping it down to his waist. Maybe it_ was _time to leave... wherever this was. He began walking back, following the cobblestone road towards the path that had taken him to this place. He had just reached the edge of the clearing, where two buildings stood as guardians to a narrow alleyway, when he remembered something. He stopped and turned around, one last question to ask before he made his way back to the waking world._

 _He could see the clearing, and in the distance, that place of nothingness, where the lines faded out._

 _"What was that golden light back there?"_

 _The Notebook didn't hesitate to answer this time._

 ** _The end._**

 ** _Xx~xX_**

Regulus was sitting on the balcony in a chair next to him when he awoke. The man wasn't looking at him, still thinking that he was asleep... and Potter sneaked a rare look at the unguarded expression on his companion's face. In the early morning light, stripped away of his cold, unfeeling front, Regulus was surprisingly _young._ The troubles of the world hadn't seemed to settle on him yet, so early in the morning.

 _I imagine this is the only time of day where he isn't thinking about the war, isn't it?_

The thought weighed heavily on his heart. In this moment, Regulus _really_ didn't look _old_ enough. Not to deal with the things he had seen, the things he had done in this war.

"Done staring, Potter?" Regulus hadn't even turned to look at him.

"How did you know I was awake?" He responded, curious and not at all ashamed at having been caught.

"Sleeping people don't speed up their breathing."

Regulus stretched his neck then returned to staring out, off the balcony and over the city.

"Regulus?"

The man twitched, unused to hearing his own name, especially from someone he'd kept it a secret from for years.

"How old are you?"

He sighed, resting his elbows on his knees and his chin on his palm. He seemed to debate internally how much to tell before giving an answer.

"Twenty-seven," he breathed. It sounded as if he had forgotten the number himself.

"Oh," was all Potter had to say.

 _He was eighteen when he took me in. And he had been fighting Voldemort even before then._ _Just what kind of life had Regulus lived? To make him seem so much older, so often? This was the first time Potter had ever seen the man look his age..._ and even now, there was something in the man's eyes... a weight that couldn't be lifted.

"Why the sudden interest?" Regulus had turned to look at him now, although his face still remained mostly unguarded.

"I- I was just wondering."

 _Will I end up the same way?_

Regulus leaned back in the chair, exhaling and watching the slow, billowing cloud of his breath dissipate into the air. They both watched, somewhat transfixed, as the wind caught it, and dragged it out towards the city streets, disappearing into thin air as it went.

"I considered altering your memory," Regulus began. "Not sure why I don't... would be a lot less risky for me if you didn't know."

Potter felt a flutter of fear, but squashed it quickly. He chose to say nothing, letting the man continue instead.

"I suppose you're old enough now that I could teach you some Occlumency... that will have to suffice."

Basilisk green eyes widened in surprise, no, outright _shock._

 _He was going to learn magic? For real? Not just reading books?_

Of course, it was Occlumency, so there wasn't going to be any wand use, but still... _he was going to learn magic!_ Difficult, advanced magic, too!

 _But for him to teach **you** , he'll have to **look** inside your **mind.**_

His happiness was short lived, as the thought, combined with subtle word-feelings from the Notebook pushed their way into his head.

But wouldn't it be okay if Regulus knew? The Notebook could be dangerous, it could be something _terrible..._

 ** _Twitch._**

No. Regulus couldn't know. He _couldn't **know.**_ **_He couldn't know, no one could know..._**

"Potter?" Regulus asked, staring straight at him, with a puzzled look on his face.

He struggled, a strange feeling inside him. Couldn't Regulus know? Wouldn't it be better?

 ** _No. No, no, no._**

But Regulus could _help_...

 _ **No. No one can know.**_

Potter's eyes turned unfocused, as he struggled inside his own mind. Wasn't there something familiar about this...?

 ** _Open._**

 ** _Blood._**

He felt sick to his stomach.

 ** _The end._**

 _And then he remembered._

The Notebook. All of it, from even _before_ he had gone down into the chamber... ever since he had first entered the Keep. He had felt it... although he had been too distracted by that comfort, that feeling of necromancy, to notice.

The Notebook's _voice_ had been there. Guiding him towards that room with the stone basilisk. Forcing him to keep quiet from Regulus. Calling to him, in his dream.

It was far too late that the fear settled in him.

 _The Notebook had been possessing him._ Making him do and say things that he would _never_ have considered before.

Why couldn't he see it sooner?

 _Probably the Notebook's doing, as well._

"R-regulus," he said shakily.

The man stared at him, a certain level of... _concern_ in his eyes.

"There's some- there's something I have to tell you."

 ** _Don't._**

 ** _No one can know._**

"You found something in the Keep, didn't you." Again, Regulus didn't sound as if he were asking a question.

Potter nodded. He was _just_ about to ask how Regulus had known, when the man continued.

"You were gone for _hours,_ boy. Did you think I hadn't noticed?"

Tears began to prickle at the back of his eyes, and his throat started to close up.

 _He knew I was lying the whole time._

" _I'm sorry-"_

"Don't be. What did you find?" Regulus had changed, somewhere during the conversation. He no longer looked _young._ His voice was no longer open and relaxed.

 ** _Don't._**

 ** _No one can-_**

Potter raised his arm, out from underneath the thick blanket and into the brisk morning air. On his left wrist, clearly and prominently visible, was the tattoo. It was fully formed now, a clearly defined rune depicting a book, with pages constantly flowing up towards his hand, twisting and curling like sheets of paper being burned in a fire.

Regulus' eyes widened. Clearly, he hadn't been expecting _this,_ although Potter had no idea what the man _had_ been expecting.

"That... _boy, just what did you find?"_ His eyes hadn't wavered from Potter's wrist.

Regulus rose from his seat and quickly made his way to where Potter still lay mostly tucked inside the blanket. The intensity in Regulus' gaze was scary and the expression on the man's face was grim. He grabbed hold of Potter's arm, taking a close look at the mark... his expression only growing more serious as he looked at it closer and closer.

"Where did you find this?" His voice was practically a growl.

"I-it... he gave it to me," Potter's voice came out as shaky as he felt.

Regulus' eyes turned dangerous.

" _Who?"_

" _The horcrux of Herpo the Foul."_

Regulus' eyes widened, and he clenched his teeth in a close-mouth grimace. His upper lip twitched slightly.

"You're sure of this?" Regulus' voice was icy.

Potter only nodded.

The man seemed to stop and think on this for a moment, although the terrifying urgency in his posture didn't falter.

"Why did you wait so long to tell me?" There was nothing accusatory in his voice, something Potter took far too much comfort in.

 ** _Don't._**

"It- it didn't want me to."

"The horcrux?"

He shook his head.

" _What_ then?"

Potter glanced down at the Notebook.

 ** _Twitch._**

"The _tattoo?"_

" _The Notebook."_

Regulus stared at him, in confusion. Potter knew he had to explain, but how...?

Then it occurred to him. _Maybe..._

He focused on his wrist, right on the tattoo. He focused and _pushed,_ trying to force whatever magic he had into the area, imagining _something coming out._ For a few seconds, nothing happened except he developed a pained look on his face... and then, with a twitch of the Notebook and another twitch in his fingers, it happened.

The tattoo writhed around like a snake, before the first line of the tattoo slid _out_ of his wrist and into the open air. Potter and Regulus both watched in horrified amazement, as the Notebook gradually formed in the air, page by page until the entire book, leather cover and all, was floating in the air, suspended just over Potter's open hand. A moment after it had formed completely, it dropped, landing perfectly in his palm, already open to a point halfway through the book, as if he had just been reading from it.

"Herpo said it was his own. He said... he said it was a gift. To help kill _the line thief."_

Regulus reached for the book hesitantly, before drawing his wand. He muttered a long, complicated series of spells under his breath, twirling his wand every which way over top of the Notebook, even tapping the pages or cover from time to time. When he was done whatever he had been doing, he reached out tentatively and gently grabbed the Notebook, bringing it towards himself, his eyes wider than Potter had ever seen them.

Regulus furrowed his brow when he saw the cover.

"An apple tree, and an urn...? Interesting..." He was muttering lowly, just to himself but loud enough for Potter to hear.

He flipped open the book to the first page, and if anything, his expression only became more pinched. He frowned, twisting the book sideways slightly, examining it... only to frown even more as a flicker of frustration passed his face. He stayed like that for a moment, flipped the page, and then flipped _another_ page, all while Potter sat anxiously waiting. Each heartbeat seemed to last a lifetime as he watched.

Finally an idea seemed to strike Regulus.

"Boy... read this. Tell me, what does it say?"

 _What? Why does he want me to_ read _from it?_

He leaned forwards in his chair, knees to his chest underneath the heavy blanket, and strained his neck to see the page that Regulus was holding out for him.

"... _in regards to the 'other side', I still struggle to make the slightest of conclusion. That cold place, whatever it may be, is unlike anything on either side. Not a gateway, nor any sort of point in between, but an existence on a different spectrum. Whatever it truly is, I'm sure my answers rest withi..."_

 _"_ Enough." Regulus ordered. "Were you even _aware_ that you were speaking Parseltongue?"

He gaped at Regulus, genuinely surprised.

"It seems the old scholars were wrong... it _is_ possible to record Parseltongue as a written language. Although, if this really is the notebook of Herpo the Foul, then that _would_ make sense..." Regulus trailed off, a dangerous, thoughtful look on his face.

"What do we do with it?"

The man glanced back at him, any resemblance he had to the unguarded young man from before now gone, replaced by the cold, indifference he so often showed.

"That... remains to be seen. It all depends on just what _I can see."_

Potter didn't like where that was going.

"A-are you going to-"

"I told you I would teach you Occlumency, boy," he interrupted. His eyes were predatory. " _I believe we can begin now."_

" _Wait-"_

 _ **Don't-**_

" _Legillimens!"_

 _Everything moved by in a blur. Like how they say your life flashed before your eyes. Except this wasn't his life... it was just everything from the moment they first apparated to the outskirts of the Keep. Regulus skimmed these parts, and Potter counted himself lucky... he doubted Regulus would be able to feel the comfort he had gotten from the necromancy even at this range. That was one detail he truly didn't want to share with the man... it was a detail he just wished he could forget._

 _The Keep flew past, all the hallways and turns and twists... very quickly, almost in the blink of an eye, he found himself running his hands along the stone bed, feeling Regulus' presence beside him, watching. Then the stone basilisk wrapped its body around his hand, trapping him against the wall, the momentary flash of panic, before its fangs plunged into his skin and he fell unconscious._

 _Then, there was the chamber. Herpo. The Basilisk. Every single thing that the horcrux had told him... and lastly, the Notebook, pushing its way into his wrist, the horrible, sickening feeling, the immobilizing charm wearing off, and him blacking out._

He came to with a desperate gasp for breath, like surfacing from underwater after a long dive in an icy river.

Regulus' hair covered his eyes, leaving only the grim, thin line of his lips visible. Potter shook in his seat, terrified... not just at having to relive his memories, but of _Regulus._

 _What was he going to do?_

 _Please don't hurt me. Please don't abandon me. Please don't leave me alone. I didn't mean to do it, I didn't mean to I didn't mean to I didn't-_

Regulus walked back over to his chair, and slowly, lowering himself like an old man, sat back down. He rested his forearms on his knees, hunched over forwards in thought, face still unreadable.

"We have to destroy it."

 _Haha **haHAha** ha._

 _"_ We- we have to _what?"_

Regulus finally looked up at him, black eyes meeting green.

"We can't trust him. The Notebook _has to go."_

 ** _HahaHAHA_** _haHa **HAhAha.**_

Potter felt sick to his stomach.

"And... _how do we do that?"_

 ** _Can't._**

 ** _H_** _ahahaHaHA **hahHAaHAhAH.**_

"Fiendfyre, basilisk venom... whatever protections are on his horcrux, he probably put on his Notebook as well. It won't go down easy."

 ** _HAHahaHa._**

He felt like throwing up.

" _When?"_

Regulus rose from his chair too quickly.

" _Now._ Say goodbye to Stockholm, Potter." Regulus held his arm out for him to grab on to, a sure sign they were going to be apparating somewhere immediately.

 ** _Can't._**

He was dizzy when he stood up from his chair, letting the blanket fall to the dirty concrete floor of the balcony. Still, he grabbed onto Regulus' arm, and readied himself for the terrible twisting of apparition.

 ** _The end._**

 ** _HAha_** _hahaHAHaH **AhahaHA.**_

The familiar feeling of apparition snapped into place, and in the blink of an eye, the balcony was empty except for a long forgotten textbook, and a crumpled blanket.


	9. A Revelation, A Recovery

**_A/N: Alright, this chapter is a bit gruesome near the start. I gave you guys a warning before, but here's another... this chapter is not kind to our characters at all._**

 _ **For anyone who may be getting tired of the brutality of this story, don't worry, it WILL get better soon! This story will have plenty of lighthearted moments, it just so happens that the beginning arcs of the story involve lots of violence and injury. Well, not** just **the beginning, it gets spread throughout the story a lot too. Potter will be getting a bit of a break from all the injury in some chapters soon, I figure he deserves it at this point.**_

 ** _As always, thanks for reading, and enjoy the chapter!_**

 ** _Xx~xX_**

The _crack_ of apparition churned his stomach, and the sudden dizziness threw him to the ground. Even before he could see straight, he could feel rough, jagged stone scraping his palms and the sting of pain it brought. When his head stopped spinning, he saw only black stone in front of him.

Rising to his feet and gently rubbing the flecks of stone from his hands, he twisted around, staring widely at his surroundings.

 _Everything_ was made of the same jagged black stone, void of all life save for Regulus and himself. The air itself was sweltering, hot to the point of drawing beads of sweat from his arms and forehead after just a few seconds. Only a few meters away was a cliff, dropping off into the ocean, although the cliff was only a few feet high. The ocean was like a savage beast, frothing white and violently throwing itself against the earth in waves taller than Regulus' head.

He had never seen a place so _hostile_ before.

" _Boy_!" Regulus shouted, his voice barely audible over the crashing of waves and the howling of the wind.

 _We must be in the middle of a storm,_ he thought. For a moment he stood, mesmerized by the sheer _force_ of the ocean, the winds and the heat of the air... it was as if nature was at war with itself. But slowly, he pried his attention away from the violence of the world around him, and back to the man who had raised him.

" _The book, boy!"_ Regulus shouted again.

 ** _Can't._**

 ** _AhaHaA_**

He shook his head, trying to physically push the Notebook's voice out of his mind.

" _Take it!"_ He shouted back.

 _Merlin, was the wind getting stronger?_

He called the Notebook out from his wrist, trying his best to ignore the way it made him want to curl up and vomit. When it was at last in his hand ( _had it taken longer than normal?)_ he tried to walk towards Regulus...

 ** _Twitch._**

...only for his legs to lock in place.

Regulus narrowed his eyes, a deep scowl settling across his face. The man quickly made up his mind and crossed the rest of the distance between them, before snatching the Notebook out of his hand.

The sudden distance from it hit him like a physical blow. The wind left his lungs and his legs turned to jelly, collapsing underneath him. His knees hit the stone followed soon after by his already scraped hands.

Regulus was already walking away, gaze intent on the book. He kept walking until he was a good twenty, and then thirty meters away, stopping in the middle of a large ring of smooth black stone. It was clearly the same stone as the rest of this place, but looked like it had been... _melted,_ at some point in the past.

 ** _Can't._**

This time, the Notebook didn't sound as confident.

Regulus drew his wand, a short, snappish movement with little extravagance.

 ** _Shouldn't._**

" _Fiendfyre!"_ Regulus' voice was twisted by the wind, distorted into something terrible.

From the tip of his wand, the _fiendfyre_ wyvern made it's appearance. It screamed forth in a grand arc, not gliding but _exploding_ into the air with the savage eagerness of a demon.

 ** _Don't!_**

Fear like nothing he had ever experienced before raced through him, from his tattoo up into his chest and out into his heart and mind. Every thought left his head, consumed only by a wild, foreign instinct.

 _ **St** o **p!** R **uN! Do** N't!_

Even the Notebook's own _voice_ was drowned out by the presence of that primitive fear.

 ** _Fire._**

He ran. His legs, suddenly freed, burned both from the blistering heat of the air and the straining of his muscles. Fast, faster than he had ever thought himself capable of, his breathing became ragged in seconds, spurred on by a _nudge_ from inside his wrist. His entire body _screamed,_ telling him to run _away, **away**_ from the **_fire,_** but something pulled him towards it instead.

 _The Notebook. Have to get it out, get it **away**_...

He was nearly at Regulus' back when the man simply tossed the Notebook into the air.

Potter watched helplessly as the _fiendfyre_ wyvern caught it between glowing jaws.

Then, everything turned red.

His left arm _burned_. A pain beyond anything he could _ever_ have imagined. He dropped to the ground, mouth open in a scream that came out only as a wheeze, carried away by the wind.

 ** _Fire! Burning, burning!_**

Inside his mind, him and the Notebook screamed together. He could _feel_ it's pain, just like his own. Feel the fire across the leather of his skin... _no,_ the leather of the Notebook's cover, not his skin...

Regulus watched the sky, oblivious to the boy on the ground behind him.

 ** _Burnt. Burning._**

 ** _Run!_**

Potter clutched his forearm, feeling the heat coming off it as it began to smoke. He stopped breathing, his lungs choking and sputtering, unable to draw air. The **_burning_** spread through his arm, slowly creeping away from the tattoo...

He rolled on the ground, his arms and legs wracked by spasms.

 _Merlin it hurts please no..._

He gasped in a single wretched breath that seared his lungs with heat. He felt as if he were _burning_ from the _inside out._

Through it all, he was finally able to form a single, coherent thought.

 _Please._

A silent cry for help. For mercy.

 _Please let it end._

The wyvern roared, still ravaging the Notebook, seeming almost _frustrated._ It gnashed its teeth together, _ripping, tearing_ into the Notebook, into his _skin_.

His _cover_ began to peel, and his eyes rolled back into his head.

 _Please let it end._

The Notebook still screamed, louder than ever, in the back of his mind.

 _Regulus, please..._

" _Boy, just what... Potter?"_

Faintly, he heard Regulus' words, as if he were listening from underwater.

 _Everything feels so far away (please let it end please let it end)._

"... _Potter!"_

As Regulus' shout reached his ears, the _fiendfyre_ above flickered and died out, a small, smoking black shape dropping from the sky to the earth.

The _burning_ went away, from the Notebook and from his arm _, but the pain did not._ It lessened, and his eyes rolled back until he could see, but he still shook and convulsed under the horrible _pain._

"Potter!" Regulus yelled again.

When he managed to focus his eyes, he saw through thick tears the form of Regulus, kneeling over top of him.

He let go of his own left wrist, which shook violently, still burning to the touch.

In a near perfect circle around his tattoo, the skin was blackened to a crisp. In another circle around that, it was a brilliant shade of red, and his skin _bubbled_ and _dripped_...

Potter threw up on the ground the moment he saw it. Even Regulus had turned a nasty shade of green.

( ** _Burning, burning!)_**

He ignored the distant screams of the Notebook.

"Potter, _what..."_ Regulus practically whispered, barely heard over the winds.

 _Funny, he normally doesn't even say my name..._

Regulus stared at the burn, a mixture of emotions on his face that Potter had never seen before. When the man raised a hand towards the burn, his fingers trembled slightly, his jaw hanging open _ever_ so slightly in shock.

" _How?_ "

Potter shook his head.

 _I don't know._

Regulus rose quickly, drawing his hand back under his cloak. He set his jaw, although his normal, impassive expression eluded him. The black haired man threw out his wand hand, and summoned the Notebook to him from where it lay in the middle of the circle.

The black leather cover was singed horribly. It peeled and curled, charred to a crisp and crumbling into ash in patches.

 _(He could hear it scream, hear its cries, feel its pain-)_

" _Just what did you do?"_ He managed to focus his eyes again. Regulus held the book in hand, shock, horror and... _worry?..._ on his face.

Regulus gingerly opened the cover, flipping through the pages... _pages that were still intact._

" _How?_ The _fiendfyre_ shouldn't have even left _ash_ _es_ behind."

 ** _Can't._**

The Notebook's voice was faint and filled with agony.

" _Regulus,"_ Potter managed to croak out.

The instant he heard the boy speak, Regulus snapped the book shut and dropped it.

"We have time to ask questions later," he said. "For now... you need a healer a _lot_ more skilled than I am."

" _The Notebook-"_

"Forget about it," Regulus snapped, although there was a certain gentleness to his voice. "We'll worry about it later... it seems there isn't much we _can_ do at the moment."

Before Potter could so much as complain, Regulus had picked him up, careful not to disturb his arm. He summoned the Notebook wordlessly, tucking it inside his cloak with nothing more than a subtle twist of his wand.

Then, with another loud _crack,_ they were gone.

 ** _Xx~xX_**

Draco's first thought was that his shoulder _hurt._ He groaned, before cutting the noise off short. It had sounded too much like a whine, and Malfoys did not _whine._

He cracked his eyes open, then immediately closed them again.

 _Merlin_ it was _bright_.

As he slowly let his eyes adjust to the sudden sunlight, he stretched his back as best he could. Soft silk sheets shifted underneath him, and pajamas of a similar material glided over his skin.

 _Where...?_

The white walls, accented in black trim came into focus, as well as the four poster bed he was laying in.

 _My bedroom,_ he answered for himself. _But why?_

In a flash, it all came back to him. The broom ride, his stunts, _his mother_... then finally, his crash, and Dobby arriving.

Then, just blackness.

He pushed himself up to a sitting position, rolling his shoulder around in its socket. It popped and he winced slightly, but the ache was fading quickly.

He tried to stand, and he made it as far as pushing himself up onto the cold, hardwood floor before a sudden wave of dizziness dropped him back into bed.

He lay there a moment, breathing deep, letting the dizziness pass.

 _How hard, and how many times had he hit his head?_

At least he didn't seem _too_ confused. Or was it impossible to _tell_ if you were confused? Maybe he was, but _because_ he was, he thought he was fine?

His stomach rumbled, so loud it echoed in his too-large bedroom.

 _Blast it, who cares if I'm confused_.

He forced himself to his feet, gritting his teeth as another wave of dizziness threatened to knock him back into bed.

Somehow, he managed to stumble his way across the room, towards a small, round table and a single chair near the corner. They were just in front of a window, a massive one, not of stained glass like most of the manor's windows, but clear and offering a perfect view of the sky.

It was the only place in his room he actually _liked._

He plopped himself down in the chair, out of habit keeping himself straightened, his posture near perfect. He _had_ learned proper etiquette, of course. He was a Malfoy, after all.

All of three seconds later, he slumped back in the chair until he more closely resembled a _rag doll,_ rather than the scion of a noble house.

 _Once_ noble, at least.

 _All well. After what it took for me to just get over here, I think a proper break from 'etiquette' is in order._

" _Dobby!"_ He shouted, letting himself sink lazily into his favourite chair.

With a small _pop_ , the tiny, floppy eared servant appeared.

" _Master!"_ Dobby squeeked, as close to a yell as the minute creature could manage. "Dobby was worried! Dobby saw young master fall, Dobby thought-"

"Yes, yes Dobby, I know..." Draco interrupted. "But you _see_ Dobby, I'm really feeling rather _peckish_ at the moment. Bring me something to eat."

He turned away from the elf in dismissal, resting his chin on his palm and his elbow on the table.

"Ah, yes! Dobby bring food, Dobby will! Oranges again, Young Master?" The elf asked eagerly.

Draco looked thoughtful for a moment, ignoring the aching hunger in his gut.

"...perhaps a lemon or too as well."

Dobby nodded, so vigorously his entire body shook with it.

"And a lime, Young Master?"

Draco sighed, and gave a dismissive nod.

 _I guess I **do** deserve to treat myself, after all..._

"Dobby will be right back!"

With another _pop,_ the wrinkled little creature was gone.

Draco sighed. He looked out the window, staring at the sky above like he had so many times before... but something seemed _wrong._ Or maybe not wrong, but... different.

He puzzled over it for a moment, his lips pursed the way they always did when he was lost in thought. It took him a few moments, but then he realised.

 _Why is the window closed?_

Even in the dead of winter, or the middle of a rainstorm, he left it wide open, letting the charms on the manor prevent him from getting cold or the water from getting in. So why was it shut _now,_ on a sunny, clear day like today?

Standing and walking were easier this time. He made his way to the window without difficulty, and pushed on the latch...

Which didn't budge. Not an inch.

 _Was it locked from the outside?_

Just then, Dobby _popped_ back into the room, a basket filled with oranges and lemons, with a single lime on the very top like the cherry on a sundae.

"Dobby is sorry!" The house elf cried, dropping to his knees and making to slam his head into the floor.

"Dobby _stop_ ," Draco commanded. "Just _what_ are you sorry for, elf?"

"The kitchen was out of _limes,_ Young Master! Dobby had to buy one, from the Fruit Man! Dobby is late, Dobby is _bad-"_

The house elf tried to bring his forehead down onto the ground, _hard,_ but suddenly found he couldn't. Draco stood in front of him, gripping the sides of his head and preventing him. With an exasperated sigh, Draco let go of the now confused elf.

"Dobby, you were hardly _late._ I never told you a time to be back here by, did I?"

Dobby sniffled and shook his head.

"Exactly. Now up, off my _floor,_ elf, and leave me to eat _in peace._ "

The house elf shot upright, stumbling over his words in a scrambled sort of apology, thanks and _whatever_ else the creature was coming up with. Draco simply sat back down and focused on the basket of citrus in front of him.

"Oh, by the way, Dobby-" He called out.

Dobby stopped, just a moment before he would have _popped_ out of the room.

"...Thank you."

Draco rolled his eyes as the elf, now _crying_ , of all things, finally left his room.

 ** _Xx~xX_**

Hours later, and he was back in bed. He lay on his back, staring at the canopy over him. It was enchanted to show a moving image of a blue sky, dotted with little white clouds, and the occasional flock of birds. It wasn't as good as the _real_ sky, but he had found himself too tired to stay sitting in his chair by the window not long after he had finished eating.

A quick glance over at the table showed a basket and a small pile of orange, lemon and lime peels.

His stomach grumbled again.

It hadn't been enough food.

" _Bah!"_ He exclaimed, throwing the blankets off to the side and nearly jumping from his bed. He may have been napping for most of the time since eating, but it was still only early afternoon, and he was _bored._ He changed quickly into proper clothes, stopping in front of a mirror as he buttoned up his shirt. He scowled the moment he saw his reflection.

His normally pristine, platinum blond hair now stuck up in every direction, a stark contrast to the sharp, aristocratic features of his face. Even as young as he was, his jaw and cheekbones were pronounced and regal, typical features of the Malfoy line.

 _But Merlin, his hair..._ Twenty minutes later and without a single strand of hair out of place, he deemed his appearance _acceptable._ He still wasn't happy about the bags under his blue-grey eyes, but there _was_ only so much he could do.

He strode towards his door, his favourite pair of shoes _clacking_ on the hardwood flooring. But he was stopped dead in his tracks as soon as he reached it, which, like the window from earlier, was _locked._

Draco paused for a second, slightly in disbelief. Then he rattled the brass handle again, and _again,_ until he was gripping it in both hands and _yanking_ on the door.

The door didn't so much as budge

" _Dobby!"_

Silence. No _pop_ or sudden snivelling elf suddenly darting around a corner... just, _silence._

A quick check of the window revealed it to be as locked as it had been hours ago. Why had he even _bothered,_ really?

Now firmly in a sour mood, and more than just confused and frustrated, he flopped himself down into his chair and huffed loudly.

 _Where was the blasted elf when you needed him?_

At the very least, his injuries seemed mostly gone. He no longer felt dizzy, or much of an ache at all. Whatever healing charms and potions he had been on had really worked wonders.

In seconds he was bored again. There was only so _long_ he could stare at the walls of his room and the sky out the window.

The last section of his room was one he spent little time in. Bookshelves lined the walls, from floor to ceiling and packed full of spellbooks and texts. All basics of course, well basic for a _Malfoy_ , at least (he was _quite_ sure it was advanced for anyone of a lesser family). Most of them, he had never bothered to read. Could he help it that riding a broom was so much more _interesting_ than dusty old books?

He walked by the shelves, waving a finger around in looping twists, before pointing to a book at random and pulling it down.

 _Dark Arts, An Introduction_ , Vol. II by someone who's name had been hastily spelled off the book, most likely due to the tome being banned since the 1840's. It was one he had read (or rather, skimmed) before, and one that had always been entertaining to read in the past. Plenty of hexes and jinxes _perfe_ _ct_ for when he finally could go to Hogwarts.

Draco ignored his chair this time, choosing instead to lay sprawled across his bed with his book in hand.

He flipped through, a bored expression on his face, skipping directly to his favourite jinxes. There was just something so _interesting_ about making someone _puke slugs..._

Having skipped most of the book, he was done in minutes and once again found himself _exhaustingly_ bored. He debates grabbing another book, but he was rather comfy in his spot...

Instead, he flipped to the very first page, something he had somehow never done before.

 _Perhaps the greatest misconception surrounding the Dark Arts throughout the ages is **not** in their intent, but their definition. What marks one spell as 'dark' and another as not? For there is no true 'light' to the dark. There is simply 'magic' and 'dark magic'. But what differentiates these two, or are they truly different at all?_

Draco perked up a bit from where he was laying.

 _This question has been pondered by many great minds for millennia. However even greater minds have **known** the answer for far longer still._

 _Dark magic is fundamentally different from the rest of magic. In the creation of its spells, the method of its casting and even the effects those spells are capable of bringing upon the world._

 _First, we must define magic. Explain that which defies logic._

 _Magic is not quantifiable, not measurable by any scale known to wizarding kind. It exists as a force, different only from forces such as inertia and gravity in that no rules seem to apply to it. Its boundaries exceed even human imagination in many ways. Still, there are things we learn of it through our own incapabilities._ _There is a limit to how much 'magic' one can use. It is often explained to apprentices as a well. Using magic drains the well, and the larger one's individual well, the more magic one can cast. This is an accurate, but wholly inadequate explanation._

 _Many forms of magic draw energy not from one's 'well', but from other sources, as 'magical energy' is stored in all substances, in varying concentrations._

 _It is this form of magic, drawing power from sources outside one's own well, which we refer to as 'Dark Magic'._ _While **all** dark spells still drain one's well, in many cases even more so than normal magic, all dark spells also require energy from another source. Most infamously, blood magic and soul magic, which require a sacrifice of blood and a sliver of one's soul, respectively, to cast._

A shiver went down Draco's spine. _A sliver of one's soul?_ Every single time you wanted to cast a spell?

Footsteps outside his door dragged him from his thoughts. He barely had time to climb out of bed and into a suitable position before his door slowly swung inwards.

The greying head of his mother was the first thing he saw, followed quickly by the utterly _blank_ expression she wore.

 _Uh oh._

Narcissa walked stiffly, even more so than normal. She glared down at her only son, stopping to stand unnervingly still before him.

"I see you have _recovered."_ Her voice was as flat as the hardwood floors, and just as cold.

Draco said nothing.

Narcissa glanced around the room.

"Have you enjoyed your stay, Dear?"

"If by that you mean being locked in my room, then _yes,_ _Mother."_

He regretted his cheek instantly. Narcissa snapped her head back to stare at him, the first hint of _anger_ beginning to shine through the stoic exterior.

"Then maybe my message is not clear. Should I instead, say, _snap the rest of your brooms for you,_ Draco?"

His eyes widened against his will.

"Y-you can't!" He sputtered.

"I can and I _will_ if you continue your insolence. As it is, you should consider yourself lucky you won't be in this room for the next _two weeks_ like I had originally planned."

Draco's sudden panic subsided slightly. Like she had _originally_ planned? What had changed? It wasn't like his mother to change her mind.

 _"Oh, Cissy, but that would ruin the fun!"_

The sudden, overly excited, high pitched, feminine voice made Draco jump. Narcissa visibly cringed, although covered it up behind a mask of indifference instantly.

From the open doorway, a second woman walked into the room.

She was easily the _strangest_ woman Draco had ever seen. Her black hair was wild, messy and tangled and far too long. Her makeup was black all over, popping out from her snow white skin and black eyes that made him want to curl up and _hide._ She strode into the room on impossibly tall heels, barely visible under her tattered and torn black dress.

The woman made a beeline straight for him, a look of twisted _glee_ on her face. She bent forwards when she got to him, standing so close their noses almost touched and Draco was forced to lean back uncomfortably.

" _Ohhh_ Draco, my little dragon! Last I saw you, you were just saying your first words!" The woman pinched his cheeks. He flinched, as she squeezed too hard, her too-long nails digging into his skin, although she seemed not to notice.

"...Draco, this is-" Narcissa began, before the strange woman cut her off.

"Ah, yes! I don't think you _would_ remember me, would you? You _were_ quite young, after all."

Something about the gleam in her eye was simply _wrong._ Like something important was missing inside her head, and the void it left was more noticeable than what was still there.

"I'll just have to reintroduce myself then! Draco, I'm-"

"My sister," Narcissa cut in sharply. " _Bellatrix Lestrange."_

Bellatrix pouted at being cut off, a disturbingly child-like expression on her face

Draco was too stunned to speak. _What was his aunt doing here?_ His mother never talked about her siblings, only briefly mentioning them when explaining the family tree.

 _But wasn't Aunt Bella supposed to be a Death Eater? What was she doing **here**?_

 _"_ I think I know what you're asking, little dragon," Bella sang. " _When do we start!_ Right? Hmm, Draco?"

 _Start? Start what, and why with this woman?_

"I- I don't believe I follow..."

Bellatrix frowned, an over-exaggerated gesture that would have been comical if it were on anyone else.

"Oh, _Cissy,_ don't tell me you didn't tell him!"

"He's been recovering, I haven't the chance."

Bellatrix ignored her, instead smiling as she caught sight of the book on Draco's bed. She picked it up with a flourish, dramatically opening the pages and flipping through far too fast to be actually reading it.

"Enjoy your books, Draco?" She teased.

He managed a stiff nod.

Bellatrix shrugged and threw the book back over her shoulder towards the corner of the room, in a high arc. In the blink of an eye, her wand was in her hand and she spun in place, a deep purple spell flying from her wand and connecting with the airborne book.

Draco watched as the book shriveled, turned black and rotted away into nothing but a pile of sticky tar-like substance, all before it hit the floor. The _stench_ it made filled his nostrils, and he gagged horribly. It smelled exactly how it looked, like a pile of something dead for so long it had lost all shape and simply become a sludge on the ground.

" _Books_ can only teach so much, little dragon. _I'm_ going to teach you the rest... the _fun_ bits!" Bellatrix smiled wildly, her eyes alight.

Narcissa tried to remain impassive, but Draco caught the slightest hint of _worry_ in the crease of her brows.

 _This madwoman is going to teach me spells? Is she even fit to carry a wand, let alone **teach** something as dangerous as dark magic? Mother, are you really okay with this? With your only son being near _**_this?_**

"When do we start?" He asked warily.

Bellatrix put on what she probably thought a _thoughtful_ face was, although in reality she simply looked over-eager.

"How about... _now!_ " She shouted, and flicked her wand up to point it at Draco's face.

He caught a glimpse of his mother's wince, before a blue spell filled his vision and everything went dark.

 ** _Xx~xX_**

 **A/N: Damn Bellatrix is a hard character to write. She's so eccentric, it's hard to make her seem _real_ , and not like a comedic or edgy parody of her canon self. Getting her in that proper balance of crazy/dangerous/childish is a lot harder than I thought it would be. ****Draco too isn't an easy character to write, yet. His dialogue and internal monologues are a balance of the eloquent, snobbish pureblood and the somewhat lazy, neglected child he is on the inside. Very interesting for me as an author, but tough to write.**

 **On other notes, I really want to know what you guys think about for OC's for the story. I mentioned before I had a couple set up, and I think I could make them very enjoyable characters that bring a lot of variety to the story, but I can also make things work without them.**

 **So, let me know. You guys want me to include some OC's, or focus more on the characters from canon? What balance between the two, maybe?**

 **Lastly, still looking for suggestions on a pairing. I don't think pairing Potter with an OC would go over too well, but I am considering it.** **I also don't want to do one of the super common pairings. So for that reason, Hermoine is out, sorry guys.**

 **A list of pairings I'm _currently_ considering (For Potter):**

 **Dapne Greengrass**

 **Astoria Greengrass**

 **Luna Lovegood**

 **OC**

 **Whatever you guys suggest, make sure to let me know why. Gives me more material to think on.**

 **As always, thanks for reading.**

 **-D.A Haven**


	10. An Old Friend, A New Foe

**A/N:**

 **So, it's been a while.**

 **Oops?**

 **Please, I can explain! Basically, back in October, I got injured pretty badly because I was a bit clumsy with a felling axe. Chopped right into my left knee, riiiight down to the bone. Not fun, as you can imagine. I spent the next four weeks walking with a limp, which really slowed down my progress in school since it's a very hands-on course with a lot of walking involved. By the time my leg started healing, we were at end of semester and suddenly I had major projects and exams to study for, and was just too stressed to be writing TNN for you guys. (To be honest, still too busy and stressed, but hey I managed to fit in time to write this chapter, didn't I?)**

 **So sorry for the wait everyone, and thank you to everyone who's still around after all this time! If you're new to the story, welcome, and I hope you enjoy!**

 **-D.A Haven**

 _ **Xx~xX**_

 _"How do you do it?" The tiny boy's voice was barely a squeak over the torrents of rain outside._

 _"...Do what?" The man replied, exhaustion clear in his voice._

 _"Make them listen."_

 _The man gazed out the window, his hair hanging low over his brow and casting a faint shadow over his face. He seemed lost in thought, and the boy watched him closely._

 _"That spell... you're too young for something like that, boy," Regulus responded without looking in his direction._

 _The boy pouted, but stopped when it became apparent Regulus wasn't going to look over. He turned to look out the window as well, but seeing nothing but a cloudy grey sky and the tops of several buildings, quickly became bored and sunk lower into his chair with a silent huff._

 _"There is something else that I can teach you though," the black haired man continued._

 _Immediately perking up, the boy began eagerly waiting, knowing that any questions he asked would be ignored, and the man would simply teach him what he wanted to know._

 _"It is not magic, but do not think it any less important. It has saved my life as many times as any spell I have ever learned," the man continued._

 _The man finally turned his gaze towards Potter, prying his eyes away from the bleak view out the window._

 _"What do you think I am feeling right now, boy?" His black eyes were unblinking, holding him in a sort of staring contest that felt far too important to be a simple game._

 _The boy shuffled uncomfortably in his seat. How... how was he supposed to know?_

 _"... I don't know."_

 _"But you could" the man said._

 _"I don't know the spell," Potter responded quietly._

 _"You don't **need** a spell, boy."_

 _Potter tilted his head to the side, puzzled, his mind racing, but unable to find an answer. What did the man mean?_

 _The man gave a slightly exasperated sigh, something he seemed to do a lot when Potter asked questions. He rested his chin in his hand, yet another sign of just how tired the man truly was._

 _"Look at my eyes, child. What do you see?"_

 _Potter stared, squinting and analyzing as best he could. The man's eyes were nearly solid black in this light, slightly bloodshot, and highlighted by the dark bags underneath them._

 _"You're tired?" He asked timidly._

 _The man snorted in what seemed like a laugh._

 _"Any buffoon could see that much, boy. Look deeper. What do you **really** see?"_

 _He frowned and looked again. Look deeper? What did that even mean? He stared for what felt like eternity, studying every detail he could. The man was patient, simply waiting for a response._

 _"...Sad," the boy finally said. "You look sad."_

 _The man paused for a moment, his face impassive. Then he broke into a slight chuckle, his shoulders twitching slightly from the shake, and the shadow of a smile crossed his face._

 _"Yes, child. Good."_

 _"Why are you sad?"_

 _He didn't know why it was important to him. Only that it was._

 _The man turned to look back out the window, hiding his face from the boy._

 _"Whether someone is lying or speaking from the heart, whether they are covering up their feelings or simply don't know what it **is** they are feeling, their eyes will always hold the truth. Words are worthless, always remember this, boy. Liar or not, anyone can speak untruths. But the eyes will always reveal what lays beneath the surface."_

 _Potter turned to look out the window as well. The rain was coming down even harder now. It was getting difficult even to see the outline of the next nearest building, just across the street. He took those words to heart, the weight of them not fully realized but still remembered._

 _"...but you never answered my question."_

 _In the reflection of the window, Potter saw the man raise an eyebrow._

 _"Why are you sad?" He repeated, more forcefully than before._

 _The man didn't smile this time, or chuckle._

 _"Perhaps one day, I'll tell you."_

 _ **Xx~xX**_

The lights were fuzzy above Potter's head. Faintly yellowish, but soft and somewhat warm... like sunlight, but very clearly not. He lay there, squinting up at the indistinct shapes of light, until the sound of a door being opened drew his attention.

" _Oh!"_ The woman's voice was surprised. "You're awake!"

He stared in confusion, as the most strangely dressed young woman he had ever seen closed the door behind her. Her skirt and blouse were a kaleidoscope of purples, pinks, blues and just about every other colour of the rainbow, as if she had walked through a fabric store and just grabbed a little bit of everything and patched it together. Her hair was long and braided, filled with beads and clips and other decorations which didn't seem to make much sense, but which clearly she had put there on purpose nonetheless. Her eyes were the same, a scattered mess of hazel, brown, green and blue, vibrant and visible even from across the room. They were gentle eyes, he noted. Kind.

"Wh-" he choked on his words, breaking into a cough. The strangely dressed woman

"W-who are you?" He was able to finish.

"An old friend of your father's," she smiled, rubbing his back in small circles. When Potter pulled away slightly, uncomfortable with the contact, her smile faltered a bit, and she pulled her hand away.

"M-my Father?"

She looked surprised for a second, but then that same warm smiled crossed her face again.

"Oh, yes! We went to Hogwarts together, back in the day... it all feels so long ago, now. Although it probably seems like ancient history to you now, doesn't it? You young'uns always think the world started right when you were born... ah, but where are my manners! My name is Isabella. And what might your name be, young man?"

Potter hesitated, completely off guard at the woman's friendly demeanor and sudden question. Just _how_ was he supposed to answer that, and _should_ he? He didn't know a thing about her, and _where..._

She frowned, a concerned look on her face, and set down a tray of food that he hadn't noticed before on the bedside table.

"Here, lad... do you feel alright, now?" She said, kneeling on the floor beside his bed and raising a hand to his forehead.

He leaned away from her hand, uncomfortable with just how _close_ she was. Seeing his hesitation, her

"That will be enough, Isabell. He's been through enough, he doesn't need your questioning." The sudden, gruff voice of Regulus had never been so welcomed before.

Potter and Isabella both turned to look at the tall man who had appeared in the doorway. Regulus was dressed entirely in black as he almost always was, but looked far from normal. His hair was shaggy and unkempt, the first hints of a beard visible, as he clearly hadn't shaved in a couple of days. The redness around his eyes told Potter that the man hadn't been sleeping.

"It was _hardly_ questioning, Reg. I just asked for the little tyke's name, not his life's story! Not yet, at least." The woman seemed to pout a little, pursing her lips in a mock display of sadness. "And how many times do I have to ask you not to call me that! Just call me Bella, like everyone else!"

 _Reg? Did she just call him Reg?_

"I most certainly will _not_ be calling you Bella, Isabel. I have no desire to ever hear my cousin's name again."

Isabella flinched slightly at the hostility in Regulus' voice, grimacing as something unpleasant seemed to be brought to mind. She shook it off though, forcing a smile back.

" _Reg?_ " Potter interjected, completely confused.

Isabella laughed suddenly as a look of utter _horror_ crossed Regulus' face.

"Do not _ever_ call me that."

"Oh, why not, _Reg?_ Or do you prefer _Reggie_ now?" Isabella giggled.

Potter simply sat there dumbfounded. He had never seen someone... _tease_ Regulus before. It seemed so strange somehow, but clearly the woman had done it before, possibly many times.

"My name is _Regulus,_ " he deadpanned. His eyes were flat as ever, but Potter could _swear_ there was just a sliver of something else in those black orbs.

"Glad to see you haven't changed a bit, Reg," Isabella smiled.

Regulus sighed, the same, exasperated sigh he always gave Potter.

"You haven't changed much either, Isabel."

The woman smiled again, and Potter decided then that he liked her. There was just something about her eyes, something comforting. Like a warm fire on a cold day.

 _Twitch._

Potter glanced down, not surprised in the slightest at the sudden movement of the Notebook in his forearm. He _was_ surprised, however, when he saw what his arm _looked like._

The tattoo was still there, the open book still clearly visible, although both it and the pages that drifted up out of it were frayed around the edges. It seemed to be barely holding itself together, fragile and delicate now, when before it had been so present and commanding. Just as startlingly, was the _ring_ around the tattoo. His skin was a deep red, sore and tender from the burns he had received back on the island. It was barely noticeable, though, when he compared it in his mind to the sheer agony that the original burn had been. The last thing he remembered... hadn't Regulus said something about a healer? He wasn't sure, everything from the _fiendfyre_ onwards seemed so fuzzy...

While he had been distracted, it seemed like Regulus and Isabella had continued talking, or rather, bickering. When he finally glanced up at Regulus, the man looked back, and instantly straightened slightly.

"I must thank you again, for your services, Isabella. But we must be going now," Regulus said suddenly, cutting off whatever conversation they had been having before.

Isabella frowned, clearly unhappy at the sudden interjection, or rather, cancellation, of their talk.

"Reg, your kid just barely woke up, you _can't_ mean to leave already, can you? He needs at least another few days to..."

"No," Regulus interrupted, his voice firm. "We have... unfinished business, Isabella. I'm afraid we can't wait any longer than we already have."

Isabella crossed her arms, stomping her foot down and raising her chin in defiance. While it made Potter shrink back a little, Regulus was utterly unphased. Perhaps because he stood head and shoulders over the woman, or maybe because he was used to dealing with Death Eaters... Potter wasn't sure.

"Two days. Your son needs _rest,_ Regulus."

 _I'm not his so-_

"I'm aware of what _my son_ needs."

Potter didn't miss the emphasis Regulus put on the words _my son._ Nor did he miss the subtle glance that Regulus shot his way.

 _Play along,_ the man was saying.

Potter nodded slowly.

( _He knew it was a play, a trick. But that didn't stop the rising swell of happiness he felt.)_

"Come on, then, kid," Regulus said, gesturing for him to get out of the bed. Potter obliged, both him and Regulus ignoring the sudden protests of Isabella.

His feet hit the hardwood floor, and he wobbled for a second, to which Isabella loudly proclaimed something about him not being ready, but he was too drawn into his own head to hear her. His vision went dark for a moment as weakness filled his legs, and a pain in the back of his head he hadn't noticed before grew into a migraine. After a few seconds, it faded to a point he could ignore it again... and he left behind the concerned woman, towards Regulus and the doorway.

For a second, that same look of concern was there in Regulus' eyes, although the rest of his face remained impassive. Then he looked away, and the brief moment was gone.

"I'll make sure he gets his rest, Isabel. But we truly can't stay a moment longer."

He placed his hand on Potter's shoulder, turning them both out the door, and marching him forwards. From the room behind them, Isabella clearly wasn't done.

" _Regulus Arcturus Black!"_

Regulus flinched.

Potter's eyes widened. _So that's his full name?_

Isabella stood in the doorway behind them, her fists on her hips.

"If you walk out that door right now, you are _not_ welcome back here anymore! So you bring your boy back in here _this instant!_

Her lips were pursed again, and she had gone rosy in the cheeks. She was clearly trying her best to seem stern, but her naturally impish and kind demeanor and strange clothing took away any semblance of severity.

The corner of Regulus' mouth twitched up in a smile.

"You don't mean that at all, Isabel."

The woman deflated, sighing loudly.

"...I know. But he still needs rest! A couple of days worth, at the very least! And don't forget to feed him properly from now on, he's as skinny as you were back at hogwarts, maybe more so! And don't forget your fruits and vegetables, and..."

Regulus outright laughed.

"Of course, Mum. Best behavior, as always." The teasing tone of voice Regulus used sounded completely foreign to Potter.

Isabella blushed, turning a bright tomato red.

"Well, someone has to remind you, or who _knows_ what you'll get yourself into! I swear, you have a new scar every time I see you!"

"Ah, I... _suppose_ there is some truth to that." Regulus smirked.

"...You'll come back sooner this time, too." She said.

"That didn't sound like a question," Regulus replied.

"That's because it wasn't. I expect to see you and your son back here, as often as you can! No more of this _disappearing for nearly a decade_ stuff, understand? How was I even supposed to know you were alive, Reg? You couldn't even send an owl?"

There was pain in her voice now, even Potter could hear it.

Something dark crossed over Regulus' face.

"I... I'm sorry about that, Isabel. I'll do my best to come visit again, more often, but I need you to make me a promise first." There was nothing but grave sincerity in his voice.

Isabella returned his serious gaze, that concerned look on her face again.

"What is it, Reg?" She asked softly.

"You _cannot_ let anyone know you have seen us, Isabel. Not a soul."

She gaped at them, confusion and worry in her eyes.

"Why? Are you... are you in trouble, Reg? Can't I help?"

"You already have, remember?" Regulus said, patting Potter's shoulder lightly. Potter did his best to smile reassuringly, despite the gravity of the situation.

"Not a word to anyone, Isabel. _Please."_

Potter's eyes widened in surprise at that. _When had he ever heard Regulus say "please", before?_

Isabella reacted the same way, just as unused to hearing Regulus say _please_ as Potter was.

"...Okay, Regulus. But please, for my sake... be _safe._ Come back and visit next time without any new scars, yeah?"

She smiled again, the kind of smile where she closed her eyes. Even still, Potter could see the sadness behind it.

Regulus smiled back, just as sadly.

"I'll try."

He put his hand back on Potter's shoulder, this time with finality. Potter braced himself, clenching his gut against the sudden tugging he knew was coming.

"Oh, right! I nearly forgot! I never caught your son's name!" Isabella called out, extending her arm as if to grab onto Regulus' coat.

Regulus tightened his grip on Potter's shoulder, the only indication that he had heard her.

Then, with a familiar _crack_ , the pair disappeared, leaving her alone in the room.

 _ **Xx~xX**_

Potter had never been to Germany before. He hadn't been sure what to expect (he never was when Regulus took him somewhere new) but being in the middle of the woods, seemingly miles from any sort of city, wasn't it. Everywhere he looked was just... _trees._ He didn't know what Germany was like, but somehow he got the feeling that this wasn't exactly the whole picture.

Regulus was even more withdrawn and quiet than normal, sometimes outright ignoring Potter's questions until the boy just gave up and sat on a rock somewhere. The man still hadn't shaved, and didn't bother tending to his hair as normal, so it hung low in messy tangles that cast menacing shadows over his eyes. He had spent the first day drawing lines in the dirt with magic, growing frustrated and scratching them all out again, only paying attention to Potter when it was time to eat from the meager pack of supplies they had brought. The second day, he began mumbling to himself, flipping through countless tomes and notebooks, drawing more lines in the dirt, before again clearing off the ground and starting over. It was then that he had stopped even answering the most basic of questions, so drawn into _whatever_ he was doing that the man forgot to eat, and Potter had instead just left some food out beside him.

Today, the third day, Regulus was clearly even more frustrated than before. Potter sat cross legged against a tree at the edge of the small clearing they had set up their tent in, as Regulus gave a low, dog-like snarl, before blasting the ground with a curse, sending bits of dirt and stone into the air. The sudden viciousness startled Potter, though he didn't move from his seat.

Instead he tilted his head to the side, just as curious as Regulus was frustrated. He was smart enough to know that Regulus was planning something, and that it wasn't going well. He was even able to put together that it was probably finding the Death Eater, Wilkes, that was proving to be so difficult. What Potter _couldn't_ put together was how sitting in the woods and drawing lines in the ground was supposed to help.

Over the past three days, without Regulus or even any of the magical textbooks he typically had to entertain him, he had spent his time listening to the Notebook. Since the _fiendfyre,_ it's voice was different. Now that he understood what had been happening, how the Notebook had been possessing him more and more from the moment it entered his arm, he looked at it in a different light.

It's voice was no longer _tempting_. Those strange emotions he felt from it no longer affected his own, although he could still feel them. He had tried talking to it, on several occasions... but the Notebook was nearly as withdrawn as Regulus. At best, it would mutter, something that could only be described as a whimper or a cry, but nothing like the sounds a person would make. It seemed the _fiendfyre_ had hurt it even worse than Potter had first thought.

Although talking to the Notebook was out of the question, he _had_ succeeded in something else.

Taking it out of his wrist was becoming easier and easier.

With Regulus barely looking up from the ground, and the complete isolation of the forest, there was no one around to so much as notice the small, dark haired boy reading from a burned up leather book. And without so much as another person to talk to, he had nothing to _do_ but read from it.

He had hesitated at first, of course. The Notebook was dangerous, he was more sure of that than ever... but even still, he couldn't ignore the burning curiosity he felt about it. Herpo, his supposed ancestor, had given it to a reason, right? Potter knew he couldn't fully trust the ancient dark wizard, but at the very least... Herpo had seemed to want Voldemort dead just as much as Regulus. That had to count for something.

 _You, not your father, not whatever wizards you call heroes in your day, but **you** will stop him. You are my heir. It is your duty. You will not turn away from this._

The words of his ancestor still played in his mind, as present as the moment he had heard them.

 _ **You**_ _will stop him._

Not his father, not Dumbledore or even... even his sister.

Dahlia Potter. The Girl Who Lived.

He closed the Notebook, snapping the leather covers shut in his left hand, and leaned back against the tree until he could stare at the sky.

He didn't think about his sister much. He knew the story, and the facts that every wizard in the world knew... Regulus had told him a long time ago. It felt like something he had just always known, at this point. Dahlia Potter was the savior of the world. Dahlia Potter stopped Voldemort on the very day she was born. Dahlia Potter was going to be the greatest witch of her generation... the next Dumbledore.

The facts and the myths and the legends all blended together with his sister.

Dahlia Potter was getting special training from Dumbledore before going to Hogwarts. Dahlia Potter could already duel a Death Eater and win. Dahlia Potter wasn't learning to fly on a broomstick, she was learning to ride a dragon.

Dahlia Potter was an only child.

And Potter didn't care.

Sometimes, he thought he should. One sibling living with their mother, all the attention and special treatment in the world, all the love and care she could need. The other sibling living a life on the run, chasing dangerous criminals while hiding from the Aurors, travelling with a man who should by all rights have been a stranger. A man who had put his life in danger multiple times, a man who was often so engrossed in his work that he forgot Potter even existed.

By all rights, he should have hated his sister.

But somehow, he just felt... nothing, for her. He had never laid eyes on his twin before. Never so much as seen a picture of her in a stolen copy of the Daily Prophet. The whole thing felt so incredibly _distant_ from him that it felt like it had happened to someone else.

He barely even had any desire to meet her, really. Just a passing curiosity, to know what the girl who he could have been raised alongside was like.

 _I wonder if she has Herpo's eyes too?_

It was the first time he had thought about it but... if he was the descendant of Herpo the Foul, then his sister would be, as well. So it was a real possibility that she had the same basilisk green eyes that he did, possibly even the ability to speak parseltongue.

It also meant that one of his parents was a direct descendant as well, although he really didn't have a clue which one. Maybe Regulus could help him figure it out? If Regulus would ever stop whatever he was doing in the dirt, that is.

The Notebook twitched, but this time, it wasn't inside his wrist but in his hand. Just a faint flutter of the cover, as if moved by a sudden gust of wind.

He flipped the book open again, pushing thoughts of family from his mind, letting that childish curiosity overtake him once more. When he had closed it, he had completely lost his page... something about Dementors, most of which had been too advanced for him to follow, but which he had read through raptly for nearly an hour. The random page he opened the book to was covered in something that looked like a graph, or a table, filled with strange symbols he had never seen before, but the second he lifted his right hand off the page, the Notebook began moving on its own. The pages lifted and turned, flipping by faster and faster, through hundreds of pages, until it slowed down and eventually landed on the exact page he had been reading before closing it. A charcoal sketch of a Dementor, cloak billowing in the wind and grey, lifeless mouth open in a silent scream dominated the right hand page, the left covered in scrawled notes about the creature.

Potter smiled, pleased that the Notebook had remembered his page again. It didn't always do this, he had found, but it was immensely useful when it _did._

Herpo's notes on Dementors were the most interesting thing he had managed to find in the Notebook so far. Most of the pages seemed to be boring mathematics... _arithmancy_ , maybe? Regulus had mentioned the word before, and it _sounded_ right, but Potter really didn't know. For now, he couldn't understand it anyways, so what it was called didn't matter much.

But after hours of flipping through the book, he had come to the section on Dementors. Soul devouring, demon-like creatures that seemed to appear from nowhere, did not breed, and could not be killed. They were _fascinating._ Herpo's studies into them were extensive, pages after pages of notes, data from experiments and sketches. The sketches were by far his favourite. The way the thick, dark charcoal lines were animated by magic, giving life to what were already incredibly lifelike drawings left him awestruck. This picture in particular was one he kept coming back to, the sketch of a completed Dementor. Not a close up of a single part, or drawing of one from afar, but a perfect view of the creature from up close. The way it seemed to float on the page, drifting slowly up and down as it's cloak billowed, and it's one exposed hand reached out towards an imaginary prey.

Herpo's notes on the other page were nearly as interesting as the picture, if not as beautiful.

 _ **Nothing kills it. Nothing! Two years, and I'm no closer. I have yet to decide if this failure is a victory or a loss. If indeed they cannot be killed, then could my search end here? Could this finally be what I have been looking for? Only time will tell.**_

 _ **Time, and many, many more experiments.**_

Sometimes Herpo would write as if he were creating a textbook, or would organize every detail and fact with delicate care and planning. Other times, like on this page, he just seemed to let his thoughts spill out... more as if he were talking to a friend than writing.

Potter imagined being a necromancer didn't let you make many friends. He guessed then, that writing in a journal was probably the closest thing the man had to companionship.

It didn't sound like a very happy life.

 _ **There is another question I have, which occupies as much of my time as the supposed 'immortality' of the beasts. If they are capable of devouring souls, then where do said souls go? Where do souls go when a person dies, regardless of Dementors? It took years, but I was able to observe... something. The moment the soul leaves the body. The moment it utterly vanishes from this world, disappearing off to someplace I cannot begin to comprehend. It took just as many years to successfully observe this same phenomena when one's soul is drawn out by a Dementor.**_

Potter shuddered slightly at the idea of an _experiment_ in which someone's soul was taken by a Dementor. How many people had Herpo sacrificed in his 'studies'?

 _ **I was able to conclude very little... but what I found is both exciting and terrifying. In that moment, after the soul has left the body, it begins to 'shimmer'. It flickers, like a candlelight moments before the wind puts it out... and then, disappears. Not extinguished, but gone. Moved on, to another place.**_

 _ **When the Dementors are involved, it is different. That moment of flickering light is extending, as the Dementor 'breathes' it in. And then in what should have been it's final moment, where it should have gone on to whatever afterlife, whatever heaven or hell may await it, it can't. The Dementor's breath holds it in place. It cannot leave. It cannot pass on. In that instant, it may have very well achieved the 'immortality' that I seek. The inability to die.**_

 _ **That is the exciting part. What happens next... that is the terrifying part.**_

 _ **It is not an exaggeration to state that the Dementor's 'devour' the souls of their victims. When the soul stops its flickering, when it has once again gone still, the Dementor consumes it. The soul enters the Dementor's body, never to be observed again. I have only suspicions as to what happens to the soul from there. Given the Dementor's immortality, I find it unlikely they are eating the souls, as we consume food. They need no nutrients in order to survive, after all.**_

 _ **I find it far more likely that those souls go... somewhere else.**_

 _ **Not the afterlife, indeed if such a thing even exists, but another place, different from heaven or hell. The disappearance of the soul is too similar, and my other experiments have all lead to the same conclusion.**_

 _ **There is another 'place'. Another realm where the dead may dwell.**_

 _ **Given the nature of Dementors, I suppose it must be a very cold, miserable place.**_

 _ **I can only hope a better future for myself, should I ever succumb to the miseries of death.**_

The sketch of the Dementor seemed less beautiful now.

A sudden gust of wind, laced with magic brushed by. Startled, he turned to look into the wind, which seemed to be coming directly from Regulus.

The black clad man was standing in the center of another set of lines on the ground, panting heavily, his back turned to Potter. The lines in the dirt now were glowing, and the wind seemed to stir the dirt, stones and sticks... pushing and pulling them around on the earth. Potter's eyes widened, both curious at what act of magic the man was performing, and excited that something seemed to have finally _worked._

Regulus was completely engrossed in the spell, concentration etched onto his face so much so that he didn't notice Potter approaching the edge of the circle of lines. Potter stopped there, though, wary of coming too close and causing Regulus to lose focus. They both watched, one with a near manic intensity and the other with curiosity and excitement, as the sticks and stones arranged themselves into an arrow. It pointed off into the woods in a seemingly random direction, and stayed put, as the dirt arranged itself in clumps, which squirmed on the ground like some kind of worm. Potter watched in fascination as the earth itself began spelling out runes and symbols, none of which made sense to him, but to Regulus...

The predatory grin the man gave when he saw them sent a shiver down Potter's spine.

The wind cut out at once, stopping as abruptly as it had come. The moment the spell seemed to have ended, Potter stepped into the circle, getting as close to his 'father' as he dared.

Regulus had his 'scary face' on again.

" _Found you."_ Regulus' snarl sent a shiver down Potter's spine.

"Who?" His voice was tiny, timid but excited.

For the first time in over a day, Regulus looked at him. That disturbing, wolf-like smile hadn't left his lips, nor had the _violence_ left his eyes.

"Wilkes," the black haired man breathed, before turning to stare hungrily back off into the woods. Potter turned with him, looking at nothing in particular, but the horizon far off through the forest. "Pack the bags, boy."

Potter turned on the spot, obeying without hesitation as he began throwing their few possessions into a collection of leather bags on the ground, with magically expanded insides. The tent, their clothes and food... it only took him a moment. As he was packing, Regulus had begun twisting his wand through the air, dispelling whatever tracking magic he had been using on the earth. Quickly the enchantments and wards around their clearing were gone, leaving the space feeling empty for the sudden lack of magic.

When Regulus had finished, he found the boy standing beside him, their leather bags slung over his shoulder.

"Are we apparating again?" Potter's voice was so small in such a large clearing. Like the wind could snatch it away without the slightest bit of effort.

"No," Regulus rumbled. "We walk. Wilkes will have wards to track apparition."

Potter wasn't surprised when the man just started _walking_. He fell into step behind, shifting the oversized bags on his back into a more comfortable position. They were enchanted to be lighter than they should have been considering how much was in them, but they were still quite a burden on the small boy.

The second they left the clearing, the world grew dark. The tree canopy was thick, blocking out what had otherwise been a sunny day. The earth was mostly clear, few bushes or low branches to block their vision or get in their way. It was rather beautiful, Potter thought. It was his first time in a forest like this, where it just seemed to stretch on for so long... it was a very different kind of beauty than the cities he knew.

Ahead, Regulus made so little sound as he walked, Potter struggled to hear him. If he couldn't see the man's back, he wouldn't have even known Regulus was there.

"Boy," Regulus said, not slowing down. "You've noticed things are different this time."

 _Again, Regulus wasn't asking a question._

"Yes."

 _Keep answers short. Let him speak._

"You will not be staying behind."

Potter's eyes widening was his only response. He stumbled a moment, tripping over his own foot before catching himself. _What?_ Regulus couldn't mean... was he actually _going after a Death Eater?_ For Regulus, that wasn't something uncommon, but Potter _always_ stayed behind. A hotel, a restaurant, even just in the tent... he _never_ went with Regulus for the final was too dangerous, that was what Regulus had always said. Death Eaters were trained killers, every last one of them. He didn't even have a _wand,_ for Merlin's sake...

So why would Regulus _bring him?_

( _He wanted to go, he wanted to come along so bad.)_

It didn't make sense. Regulus had never let him go on the dangerous ones before, what had changed? What was different _now?_ What could possibly justify...

"This one... it won't be dangerous, like the others? That's why I can go?" Potter's uncertainty was muffled under the silence of the forest.

"...More dangerous," Regulus said, without looking back.

Potter's head spun even more. He felt like he was in a dream.

 _Why?_

"You're probably asking _why_ right now, boy." The man called back, raising his voice until it resounded confidently between the tree trunks. He turned then, never slowing down, but looking directly into Potter's wide green eyes. "Do you want to know?"

It was rare of Regulus to ask him if he wanted to know something. The answer was always, _always_ yes.

Potter nodded shakily.

The flicker of a grin passed over Regulus' mouth before he turned back to where he was walking.

"Do not misunderstand... you will _not_ be in the middle of the action. In fact, you won't be anywhere near it at all. But you will have a role to play in this, rest assured... it is time I _truly_ begin to teach you."

Potter held onto every word, excitement and nervousness burning into every cell of his body. He shook from it all, barely containing his thoughts which wanted desperately to be set free and to roam into every possibility. What could Regulus be planning? What _role_ did he have to play in this? Was he... was he even truly _ready?_

 _(Of course not.)_

But he wanted to be. More than he had ever wanted anything before. The very thought of working _with_ Regulus, of not having to be _left behind..._

Neither of them spoke a word the rest of the day. They walked for hours on end, Regulus setting a brisk pace that had Potter panting, his short legs struggling to carry the bags on his back that seemed to grow heavier with every passing minute. Beads of sweat began to coat his back, then the rest of his body, despite the temperature steadily dropping. He was panting as well, as they marched up yet another hill, steep enough that he felt like he was climbing a staircase. As the sun began to set, disappearing behind the rapidly darkening forest, Regulus paused for just a moment, slowing to walk directly beside Potter. He reached out suddenly, grabbing the strings of the bag and hoisting it over his own shoulder without so much as a glance.

Potter felt he could have collapsed right then in relief, and slept right there in the moss. Instead, he pushed his burning legs again, up _another hill_ in what now seemed to him to be an _endless_ forest.

Even when the sun had fully set, Regulus did not slow down. He reached deep inside the bag, drawing out a small piece of plastic Potter had seen several times before, a muggle lighter. Next was something Potter hadn't even been aware was _in_ the bag, a stick, with one end covered in some sort of sticky black substance.

It made a rather impressive fire, after Regulus put the muggle lighter to it. The firelight cast dancing shadows off into the woods, creeping around the edges of vision.

Why Regulus didn't just use the spell... _lumos_ , Potter recalled... he didn't know. But then, Potter rarely understood what Regulus was doing.

When Regulus did decide to stop for the night, Potter stumbled directly into his back. Regulus turned to frown at the boy, more with a sigh than anything else, and found himself staring down into startlingly green eyes that were already half closed. He watched in bewilderment as the boy simply _dropped_ , slowly sinking to the ground, landing with a _thump_ on the moss. The boy had been asleep before he hit the ground, and showed no signs of stirring.

Regulus sighed.

 _Perhaps I pushed him too far today,_ he thought.

The boy was just as light as always, skinny and underweight even though Regulus always did his best to feed him until the kid was too stuffed to move. Just _how_ he stayed so thin was a mystery Regulus doubted he would ever solve, but after a long day like today, he wasn't inclined to complain.

He laid the boy, still soundly asleep, down on a simple bedroll, before laying his own down on the earth several feet away. It was warm tonight, warm enough that he could get away with leaving the tent in its bag. The bloody thing was a pain to set up, anyways... he couldn't understand why some muggles used them for _fun._ At least the boy seemed to be a natural with the thing...

A cold breeze blew through the stand, and whatever his mood had been before turned grim.

He turned to lay on his side, facing the boy who now lay motionless but for the rising and falling of his chest. It was easy to forget sometimes just how _small_ the boy was. When he was awake, the boy was so full of curiosity, so full of _life_ that he seemed much larger. Much more present, more commanding of whatever space he was in. There was an intensity to the boy that others his age didn't have, and at times it made him seem so much more _significant._ But here, in sleep, all of that was gone. The boy lay with his legs curled up to his chest, his head tucked in low. He barely took up a quarter of his own bedroll.

Potter looked like a strong breeze could just pick him up and carry him away, no more relevant or significant than a leaf on the wind. A tiny, helpless, blind creature, stumbling through an uncaring world, only brave enough to move forwards because of the back in front of him. Following Regulus with an undeserved trust, a trust so deep it was beyond question in the boy's mind.

It was hard to compare the Potter he saw now with what he _knew_ the boy to be. What he knew the boy to be _capable of_. It was hard to think about Potter in that way, when he saw Potter as he was now... small. Powerless. Shivering in an ever strengthening wind.

It was even harder to think that someday, he may have to kill the boy that he had raised since birth.


End file.
